Soil Moisture Plays Key Role in Spread of Methane from Pipe Leaks
Sometimes natural gas pipelines leak. Hey, it happens. Not often, but it happens often enough that pipeline companies must prepare risk assessments of the potential hazards posed by a pipeline leak. They now have a new tool to make those assessments. According to a new study published by researchers at Southern Methodist University, soil moisture content is the main factor that controls how far and at what concentration natural gas spreads from a leaked pipeline underground.
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It seems the Bidenistas have tried every bad energy policy idea in the book to lower the cost of energy. They’ve looked at price caps, export bans, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve, and begging OPEC. None of it has worked. At the risk of helping the Bidenistas (whom we want tossed from office), there is an easy fix to the current energy crisis: Support the domestic oil and gas industry. Showing support for our oil and gas industry will build investor confidence and calm markets. But don’t hold your breath that Biden will actually reverse course and begin to support oil and gas.
A court case decided in late April in Pennsylvania Superior Court appears (to us) to have significant ramifications for landowners and drillers with respect to deducting post-production expenses. The case is Dressler Family, LP v. PennEnergy Resources, LLC (copy of the decision below), and it addresses “market enhancement” royalty clauses found in many PA leases. Market enhancement clauses typically prohibit the deduction of post-production costs that are incurred when transforming gas into a marketable form. Some drillers ignore such clauses and deduct all “post-production costs” from the landowner’s royalty based on the drillers’ incorrect assumption that gas is “marketable” at the wellhead. This case and decision helped clear up definitions of what is and is not marketable gas.
Although we didn’t watch all of last night’s debate between Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz, we’ve read plenty of accounts and have watched some of the clips. Fetterman, by all accounts, was a disaster. We read numerous accounts by both Republicans and Democrats that watching Fetterman self-destruct was “painful.” In particular, Fetterman stumbled and bumbled when rigorously questioned about his flip-flop on the fracking issue. We watched it (segment embedded below), and indeed, it is painful to watch.
For at least five years, MDN has reported that the primary source of imported LNG for Boston, Trinidad & Tobago, has seen falling output of natural gas (see 
Today we bring you a guest post from MDN friend Garland Thompson, a gifted reporter/writer who covers energy and technology issues for US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, the Philadelphia Tribune, and other periodicals. State Sen. Gene Yaw will host a hearing in Philadelphia on Thursday to explore LNG, its role on the world stage, and the potential role Philly can play in providing it. Using the upcoming hearing as a jumping-off point, in this post, Garland connects the dots between proposed House Bill 2458 (see 
This is, indeed, a sad day. Last Thursday, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP), which is majority owned by and is operated by Equitrans Midstream Corp., filed a notice to voluntarily dismiss eminent domain proceedings against landowner holdouts in North Carolina for land needed to build an extension of MVP into the state, called MVP Southgate. An Equitrans spokesman said the company hasn’t given up on the Southgate extension. We don’t believe it for a New York minute. We’ve seen this movie before when PennEast Pipeline canceled eminent domain, first in Pennsylvania (see 
What the heck is going on with natural gas prices? Last Friday, the NYMEX futures price (based on the Henry Hub spot price) lost another $0.40 to close at $4.96/MMBtu. NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas National Average dropped $0.54 to $4.99/MMBtu. The NYMEX lost $1.49 last week, representing a 23% drop in price–in one week! Last week marked the longest losing streak for natural gas prices (9 straight weeks) since the week ending Feb. 8, 1991, when the market fell for 11 straight weeks. Yuck.
As part of its third quarter 2022 update, Kinder Morgan (KM) CEO Richard Kinder said his company is bullish on U.S. LNG exports. Kinder said he expects (predicts) U.S. LNG exports will more than double, from the current 11 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to 28 Bcf/d by 2030–less than eight years away. KM flows around 50% of all the molecules that get exported as LNG from this country, so Kinder should know a thing or two about the LNG market.
Last week we told you about a group of brainwashed children at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), who were behaving like spoiled rotten brats, demanding UPenn divest from any company with a whiff of oil or natural gas about it (see 
Last Thursday, representatives from manufacturing and the energy sectors delivered their thoughts on the future of the national and local economies at the 2022 Economic Outlook Conference sponsored by the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce. Front and center at the event was talk about the role of shale energy in revitalizing West Virginia and making it THE go-to place to set up new manufacturing operations. One speaker pointed out: “(West Virginia) is the only place in the world where you can build your manufacturing facility on top of your natural resources, your energy, and your raw materials in the middle of the biggest market in the world.”
In June, seemingly out of nowhere, a plan to build an LNG export facility on the banks of the Delaware River south of Philadelphia made big headlines in Philly (see 
Last year the State of Rhode Island, a small Communist stronghold in the United States, voted to phase out the use of all fossil energy by everyone in the state by 2050–the so-called Act on Climate. It’s more like the Shoot Yourself in the Head Act. Of course, passing a law and then trying to accomplish what the law stipulates are two completely different things, as the Commies in Rhode Island are discovering. They are beginning to flail about looking for solutions to how they can force their citizens to dump fossil energy without completely destroying the state’s economy. (Spoiler alert: They won’t find such a solution.)