Commonwealth LNG Signs MET Group to Prelim Contract for 20 MT
Last November, after months of carping and complaining, the (at that time) three Democrats who serve as commissioners for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) flipped and voted with the two Republican commissioners to approve Commonwealth LNG’s plan to erect a new LNG export plant in Cameron Parish, La. (see FERC Flips – Unanimously Approves La. Commonwealth LNG Terminal). Since then, one of the three Dems, Richard “Dick” Glick, has left (shown to the door by Joe Manchin). While Commonwealth has not officially declared a positive final investment decision (FID) to build the plant, it looks like the company is close to doing so. Earlier this week, Commonwealth LNG signed a deal with a European company to sell 1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG for 20 years from the facility.
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Quick! Apply pressure to the wound before the patient (in this case, the Marcellus/Utica) bleeds out. Another week, another lost rig in the Marcellus. We can’t seem to stem the flow of rigs leaving. The national rig count also lost one rig overall. For the eighth week in a row and the 17th of the last 18 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. The total is now down to 631 active rigs across both oil and gas (down from 632 last week). At least the loss is slowing. West Virginia dropped one rig after adding one last week. The rig counts for both Pennsylvania and Ohio stayed the same last week.
Three weeks ago, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see 
Hundreds of thousands of old conventional oil and gas wells across the U.S. have been abandoned over time by the companies and individuals who drilled them. In many cases, tracking down the original owner and who should be responsible for plugging the old wells is impossible. So, the government has stepped in to “fix” the problem by throwing your money at it. (Ronald Regan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”) Part of the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a program called the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, which contains $1.55 billion in funding from 2022 to 2028 to help with (among other things) plugging orphaned wells. The Bidenistas have just released $350 million of that $1.55 billion (23%) to get the process going.
In July 2020, Dominion Energy announced it had decided to exit the natural gas pipeline business by selling it to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (see 
When Russia illegally and immorally invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the price of oil and natural gas worldwide soared to record highs. Western countries pledged to wean themselves off Putin’s oil and gas, and Putin threatened them in return with cutting them off without notice. There was a lot of scrambling, and Europe filled its storage with oil and gas, so prices began to drop when the winter of 2022/2023 rolled around. Prices have continued to drop (except for oil, recently). With prices in the doldrums, drillers are drilling less. Rigs are being released. Yet production is still rising! It’s confusing–what’s happening?
Yesterday morning at around 5 a.m., one or more persons used “homemade incendiary devices” (i.e., Molotov cocktails) to destroy two pieces of heavy equipment used for excavating a path for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The crime happened in the Boones Mill section of Franklin County, Virginia. Virginia State Police, along with the FBI and BATF, are looking for the criminals, seeking the public’s help in tracking down these pieces of human debris.
New Jersey is a Communist state, controlled by Communists from the Governor on down to radical judges packing its courts. Yesterday, three Commie judges from the Superior Court of NJ ruled that the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) should not have issued an exemption to the Highlands Act to Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) to build a new compressor station in West Milford. The compressor is part of the TGP East 300 expansion project, an upgrade of TGP to deliver an extra 115 MMcf/d of natural gas to Consolidated Edison and its customers in New York City and surrounding suburbs. East 300 is a FERC-approved project (see 
There are four primary certification standards now in use by Marcellus/Utica (and other shale play) producers that want to prove the gas they produce is responsible, with low methane emissions. The original three include (1) Project Canary’s TrustWell Certification, (2) Equitable Origin’s EO100, and (3) The MiQ Standard (see 
When a government agency says it will “study” something, that means you can kiss it goodbye. It’s lights out. Our country has a serious problem: insufficient pipelines to get natural gas where it needs to go. In June 2020, during the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), published final rules to allow LNG to be safely transported by special rail cars (see 
Antero Resources and Antero Midstream have donated a massive $4 million to West Virginia University’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources to help train the next generation of petroleum and natural gas engineers. Antero’s gift is the largest philanthropic donation to the school to date. It will support undergraduate and graduate students in the petroleum and natural gas engineering program.
Last Friday, MDN told you about a new Cambridge University study published in the journal Science exposing the sale of carbon credits as a scam (see 
Two weeks ago, MDN editor Jim Willis offered the opinion that PTT Global Chemical is not going to build an ethane cracker plant in Belmont County (see 
The old Energy Harbor coal-fired power plant in Pleasants County, WV, which had been offline since June 1 and was scheduled to be demolished, has roared back to life under new ownership. Omnis Fuel Technologies invested $800 million to restart operations at the plant, which is now back online and producing electricity. Omnis’ plan is to transition the plant, renamed to Quantum Pleasants, to use hydrogen instead of coal.
UGI, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations in the Marcellus and one of PA’s largest utility companies, is looking to sell or spin off its propane subsidiary into a new company. UGI’s propane subsidiary is AmeriGas, the nation’s largest retail propane marketer, serving nearly 1.3 million customers in all 50 states from approximately 1,400 locations. This is pretty big news in our book.
Last week, MDN told you about the third and final public hearing held by the Pennsylvania House Philadelphia LNG Natural Gas Export Task Force (see