Radicals Still Trying to Force Name Change Away from “Natural” Gas
Despots and dictators the world over are the same, whether it’s Vladimir Putin relabeling his naked aggression of outright war against Ukraine as a “military operation,” or New York State’s so-called Climate Action Council relabeling natural gas as “fossil gas” (see NY’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Wackos Rename Natural Gas to “Fossil Gas”). Tyrants seek to relabel those things they can’t control in an attempt to pressure, hoodwink, and manipulate the masses–to force others into doing what they (the tyrants) want done. The left is in a Holy War to relabel natural gas as something else (see The Left’s Holy War to Separate the Word “Natural” from “Gas”). We hadn’t heard much lately about this silly effort at relabeling, but like a dog with bone, the left never gives up. Radicals are now pressuring the Bidenistas to purge “natural” from “gas” at the federal government level.
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On December 5, 2019, the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ (see 
Last night, Shell hosted a virtual community meeting to address air monitoring and recent problems experienced at the company’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. Executives answered questions about the plant’s environmental record over the past six months, including a recent odor event earlier this month (see 
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times–the claim that fracking causes earthquakes. We’ve talked about this issue almost from the beginning of writing the MDN blog site in 2009. A quick summary of our own observations is that frack wastewater disposed of via injection wells (not fracking itself) is the culprit in causing low-grade earthquakes in some areas. However, the wastewater doesn’t cause an earthquake unless the injection well is located on or near a natural underground fault in the rock layer. Rarely (we can count it on one hand) have we read of fracking itself causing an earthquake. Yet a researcher from Ohio’s University of Miami claims research shows fracking itself can cause an increase in earthquakes.
Disappointing news has been a constant this week–and it’s only Tuesday! Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court proved that sometimes it’s not so supreme. The high court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who are arguing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia.
Last December, Rice Acquisition Corp II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) started by the Rice brothers (Danny, Toby, and Derek), announced a deal to acquire NET Power–an electric power developer with revolutionary new technology to capture every last molecule of carbon dioxide from natural gas-fired power plants (see 
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Lake Charles LNG project, in Louisiana, has been plagued with trouble from the beginning. The project began life as a 50/50 joint venture with Shell. However, Shell pulled out in 2020 (see 
There is no question of a huge world appetite for U.S. LNG exports. Even so, the effort to bring new LNG projects online in the U.S. is problematic for several reasons. An extensive article in the Financial Times says “intense competition between developers” and “escalating costs” are making it hard to bring new projects online. Where do things stand? Over the next four years, six projects currently under construction will come online, delivering an extra 64.82 million tonnes per year (mn t/y) of LNG. However, there are another 11 projects that have not yet made a final investment decision (FID). Some may end up getting built, some won’t. If (by a small miracle) all of the 11 were to get built as planned, it would deliver another 110.37 mn t/y of LNG for the world to purchase and use.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a true extremist, is trying to ban natural gas hookups in every single new home and business across the “Empire” State (see 
Last August, Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of 49 miles of existing pipeline (see 
S&P Global Commodity Insights reports that natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica has fallen this month, in April, by some 400 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) from the average production seen during the first quarter. The most notable declines are in eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania. Why is production down? Falling demand (from mild weather) and high rates of storage (extra supply) are crashing the spot price for natural gas traded at the region’s defacto benchmark trading hub–Eastern Gas South.
Last November, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
We read with some amusement a column by the CEO of Qamar Energy (an OPEC-tied consultancy based in Dubai, UAE) that says yep, American shale oil output has hit its zenith. It’s all downhill from here. The Big Oil companies have taken over all of the good shale assets in the States and they plan to drill less in places like the Permian Basin (in West Texas and eastern New Mexico). This latest prediction makes us laugh out loud. How many times before have we heard the same thing uttered from noobs, both domestic and (in this case) foreign. They consistently underestimate American ingenuity. Just when everyone predicts “peak oil” and declares shale production is all over, a new discovery is made. A new piece of technology is introduced. A new shale layer is explored. A new technique is adopted. This is the American way. And it confounds the “experts” every single time. Such is the power of free enterprise and capitalism.