Biden DOE Slow-Walks LNG Export Approvals to Non-FTA Countries
President Joe Biden has, on many occasions, stated that the U.S. would step up LNG exports to help our European friends (see Biden Promises More, and Cleaner, U.S. LNG for Europe). Yet the actions of his administration run counter to his words. In order to build more LNG export plants to send more LNG to Europe, what first needs to happen are signed contracts that will guarantee revenue for said LNG plants. In order to get signed contracts, the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) must approve trade agreements with European countries, especially those without an existing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. Yet the DOE is, according to those who want to build the new LNG plants, “slow walking” approvals for new LNG contracts with non-FTA countries.
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Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its Environmental Quality Board (EQB) rammed through (in a rush) a set of regulations to control volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and by extension methane, for conventional drilling sites throughout the site. The DEP has had SIX YEARS to get these regulations done, and has missed deadline after deadline. Now, with a Dec. 16 deadline approaching to finish up the regs or risk losing half a billion dollars in federal highway funds, the DEP is trying to bully the conventional drilling industry into accepting its onerous regulations with no comment period, no feedback, no nothing–under threat of risking half a billion dollars. It’s DEP blackmail, plain and simple. What will the conventional industry do? Take it lying down? Or fight?
ShalePro Energy Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA but with five regional offices scattered across seven states (including offices in each of the three Marcellus/Utica states), announced it has just closed on a deal to acquire Tight Line Services, based in Hickory, PA (Washington County). Tight Line, which provides civil construction services to the natural gas industry, is the fifth company acquired by ShalePro. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Tight Line’s seven full-time employees, along with the company’s current CEO, have joined ShalePro.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article yesterday to say that according to their data, the U.S. hit a new record high for natural gas production in 2021. As part of the article, EIA points out that the Marcellus/Utica region now accounts for nearly one-third of all U.S. dry natural gas production! The chart included with the article (below) shows gas production by source, including both the #1 source (Texas) and #2 source (Pennsylvania).
The American Petroleum Institute (API) yesterday released new analyses (see the 160-page report below) on the benefits of low-carbon hydrogen produced from natural gas. The study, commissioned by API and conducted by ICF, found that hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture and produced from electricity and other energy sources (so-called “blue” hydrogen) could eliminate an additional 180 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on average per year through 2050 and save over $450 billion cumulatively through 2050 when hydrogen incentives are uniformly provided based on a per ton of GHG emissions reduced. API wants the world to know, hydrogen made from natural gas (as 95% of all hydrogen is), is the way to go.
The attacks against American energy by the Biden administration come so fast and so frequently, we can’t keep up with them. Here’s one that slipped by us. On July 7, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), under the “leadership” of the very dull Jennifer Granholm, proposed rulemaking for Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Furnaces, which would amend the energy conservation standards for non-weatherized gas furnaces and mobile home gas furnaces, eliminating natgas furnaces used in millions of American homes. The American Gas Association (AGA) filed a blistering response on Oct. 6, saying the new rule would be harmful to consumers, counterproductive to energy efficiency goals, and unlawful.
EQT CEO Toby Rice has been and is on a mission to spread the gospel of LNG (see 
In just the past week, woke/leftist investment firm BlackRock (the largest investment firm in the world) has lost over $1 billion of investment money from two states: Louisiana (see 
The laughably misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is now law. Hopefully, a Republican takeover in Congress in November will mute some of the aspects of this terrible new law, but we’re not holding our breath. IRA is the law and we must now deal with it as such. While there is a mini-gold-rush mentality about the law and its $8 billion allocated for hydrogen projects, the overall aim of the IRA is to transition the entire economy of the United States away from using fossil energy to using so-called renewable energy by showering renewables with mountains of money. We predict here and now that the effort to convert America to renewables using the IRA will utterly and completely fail–for one main reason…
In a March 3rd Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick this question: “Has anyone higher up in the [Biden] administration ever spoken to you in regards to somehow slow-walking or otherwise impeding or otherwise accentuating policy that would have the effect of impeding the development of natural gas pipelines?” Chairman Glick responded with an unambiguous “no.” Yet FERC refused to release records of communications and meetings with the White House to back up Glick’s statement. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) promptly filed a lawsuit (and nine others since) to probe the extent of the involvement of the Biden White House in reshaping FERC’s policies. FERC continues to stonewall the IER’s requests. What is FERC, and The White House, hiding?
If fossil energy companies believe they can make their chosen business and industry more palatable to radical environmentalists, like Food & Water Watch (FWW), by jumping into hydrogen whole-hog, they need to think again. As we’ve been warning for months, the kook/left/fringe of the environmental movement has declared hydrogen as big of an enemy as natural gas (see 
EnergyFunders recently launched a new fund called 
As we told you last week, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) was long ago supposed to have reintroduced a new set of regulations for the conventional oil and gas industry in the state to control methane emissions (see 
On Saturday, Oct. 1, Berkshire Hathaway Energy shut down the Cove Point, Maryland, LNG export facility to perform regular annual maintenance. Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett), while a minority owner of Cove Point, is the operator of the facility. Natural gas flowing to the plant for liquefaction and export averaged 0.76 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in September (three-fourths of a Bcf). Those flows dropped to near zero on Oct. 1. Cove Point is typically offline for three weeks each year for maintenance. Now we hold our collective breath until it comes back online. Three-fourths of a Bcf each and every day is a lot of gas. Where will it go?
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently published an article observing the number of DUCs (