Marcellus/Utica NatGas Production Hits 4-Mo High with Start of MVP
Last week, MDN told you about some of the early impacts as a result of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that stretches from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, coming online (see MVP Lowers Gas Prices in Southeast, Raises Prices in Northeast). MVP has caused regional pricing in the M-U to go higher (new demand) and regional pricing for customers in the Southeast to go lower (new supply). It’s magic! It will come as no surprise that drillers who are seeing higher prices for their natgas, more capacity to ship it, and more demand for it are now producing more of it.
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Texas Eastern Transmission Pipeline (TETCO) is a major natural gas pipeline originally built to flow gas from the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas and Louisiana up through Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to deliver gas in the New York City area. Owned by Canadian-based Enbridge, TETCO is one of the largest pipeline systems in the United States. Years ago, large portions of TETCO were reversed to flow Marcellus/Utica gas southward along the pipeline. Here’s something we’re sure happens with big pipes like TETCO, but not something you read about often: TETCO is replacing a segment of its pipeline that runs through Fayette County, PA.
Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see
Not even the Bidenistas who have taken over at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) can cover up and hide the fact that the United States runs on fossil energy. An EIA post from last week chronicling the changes in energy use and sources since 1776 reveals that in 2023, some 82.5% of all energy used in our country came from oil, natural gas, and coal (fossil fuels), while just 2.3% came from so-called renewables solar and wind. Yet mainstream media keeps feeding the population the false narrative that solar and wind are taking over and about to replace fossil energy as our primary fuel source. IT’S A LIE!
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count had been in a pattern of free-falling for over a month. Last week, the national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count finally reversed course and added four rigs — now at 585. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the fifth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs.
Yesterday, MDN brought you the news the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that overturned a 40-year-old case establishing the leftist utopian administrative state, colloquially called the Chevron deference case (see
In January, Joementia announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 17 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see
On Friday, June 14, the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline had, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules (see
Yesterday, Ascent Resources, LLC, Ohio’s largest shale driller, released its 2023 Sustainability Report (formerly called its Environmental, Social, and Governance, or ESG, report). The new report chronicles the company’s environmental, health and safety, social, and governance efforts and accomplishments in 2023. We’ve recently highlighted some other ESG reports, namely EQT and CNX. So why bring you Ascent’s ESG report? It’s not for the reason you might think…
Yesterday, CNX Resources filed a trade secret lawsuit in Pennsylvania federal court accusing a former employee of wrongfully using the company’s confidential business information to file patent applications in his own name. The company alleges the employee violated his contractual obligations to CNX and misappropriated CNX trade secrets for his own personal gain.
Three weeks ago, the owner of Austin Master Services (AMS), American Environmental Partners (AEP), sent a press announcement to MDN to announce he has found a buyer for AMS (see
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. On June 13, the SRBC board approved 19 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, seven of them for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers (and one water company) receiving a green light from SRBC included BKV (3 requests), EQT, Keystone Clearwater Solutions, Seneca Resources, and Southwestern Energy.
Leftists (aka liberals, Communists, socialists, and leaders of the Democrat Party) believe they are smarter than you, they know more than you do, and they should be able to make decisions that affect your life outside of the laws created by duly elected members of Congress. For decades (some 40 years), we in the U.S. have lived under the tyranny of the bureaucratic administrative state following a court decision commonly referred to as the “Chevron deference” case. That case, decided in 1984 (ironic, no?), gave broad powers to federal agencies like the EPA and other executive branch agencies to create, in essence, their own laws (called regulations) without any specific delegation of authority by Congress to do so. It has led to the radical loss of freedom as bureaucratic leftists seized power to enact rules they demand YOU live under. No more! Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that nullified and threw out the Chevron deference doctrine. This has HUGE implications for the entire oil and gas industry, including the Marcellus/Utica.
Must be it’s an election year. How do we know? The desperate Democrats are doing their best to distract and focus attention away from the decrepit, mentally impaired Joe Biden by accusing “Big Oil” of conspiring with OPEC to keep oil prices high. Except oil prices aren’t all that high. U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Communist (who pretends to be a Democrat) from Rhode Island, is “demanding” all sorts of internal communications from “Big Oil” companies in a new witch hunt he’s launched into this earth-shattering matter. Sheldon Whitehouse is a LOSER in all capitals.
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count has been in a pattern of free-falling for the past month. Last week, the national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count dropped by another seven to 581, the lowest since December 2021. It’s gone from free-falling to a bloodbath. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the fourth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs.