Utica Driller Gulfport Energy Considers Merger with Encino Energy
Sources whispering to Bloomberg say that Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), is having exploratory talks with Encino Energy about selling itself to/merging with Encino. In March the rumor mill said Gulfport was in talks to sell itself to Ascent Resources (see Rumor: Gulfport Energy in Talks to Merge with Ascent Resources). It appears those talks didn’t go anywhere. What about this time?
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Yesterday the NYMEX natural gas price lost 20% of its value in a single day for the second time in two weeks. When news broke on June 14 that the Freeport LNG plant would not likely return to full service before the end of this year, the NYMEX front-month contract lost $1.42 (19.75%) to close at $7.19/MMBtu (see
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus and Erie counties in New York, that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The project was repeatedly delayed by the radicals of the Andrew Cuomo (now Kathy Hochul) administration. NFG says it still wants to build the project, but needs more time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) just gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done.
Wow, have the standards at Harvard University slipped! It used to be that Harvard was known for academic rigor–thoroughness and accuracy. Those days are long gone. Now Harvard is controlled by leftists who succumb to groupthink and political ideology instead of the scientific method. Case in point: Harvard recently published a study in Environmental Science & Technology that claims natural gas used for powering household stoves, furnaces, and water heaters “may contain” levels of “cancer-linked compounds” that are “toxic to residents when leaked.” In other words, the left has embarked on a mission to convince you that using natural gas will give you cancer. HORSE MANURE!
Plum Boro (Allegheny County, PA) officials and environmental leftist groups (backed by Big Green foreign money) are gearing up to oppose Plum’s second wastewater injection well with smears and lies. A long-fought-over wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, having overcome all sorts of smears and slanders and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see
Using data from several government agencies, the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, Inc. (GO-WV) published its annual Gas Facts report earlier this week. Natural gas production in WV increased 6% to approximately 2.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2021. The increase in production helped drive a 10% increase in state severance and local property taxes collected.
In March MDN brought you information from the Toronto Financial Post that said the Ukrainian crisis has put two East Coast Canada LNG export facilities “back on the map” (see
Mike Rowe is a TV host, writer, narrator, producer, actor, and spokesman. He is perhaps best known for the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs, running for eight seasons, ending in 2012 (but recently revived in 2022). Rowe has a lot of fans. One of them wrote him a letter after seeing Rowe appear in a commercial for the Oklahoma Energy Resource Board (OERB). She proceeded to lecture him on his ignorance that we must dump fossil energy in the next 12 years or we’re all toast. Sound familiar? Rowe, in his inimitable style, writes back and kindly, gently, with his verbal hand around her shoulder, proceeds to obliterate her arguments.
S.T.L. Resources, LLC, an independent oil and gas company with headquarters outside of Pittsburgh, announced yesterday that the company has purchased the remaining assets of Tilden Marcellus for an undisclosed sum. Tilden filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February (see
Equitrans and its Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, attacked by Big Green groups including the Sierra Club (rumored to be backed by Russian money), finally got some good news yesterday. As soon as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a certificate approving the MVP Southgate project, the FERC certificate was challenged by the Clubbers in federal court. Yesterday the court turned back the challenge by the Clubbers and said Southgate has a right to life.
More than half of the refining capacity in the U.S. is located on the Gulf Coast, where more gasoline and distillate fuel is produced than used. On the other hand, the U.S. East Coast has very little refining capacity but is often the location where the most gasoline is consumed. Consequently, the East Coast receives fuel from other regions, predominantly the Gulf Coast, and imports fuel from other countries. It seems to us that there is a big opportunity to build new refineries along the East Coast.
The Group of Seven (G-7) is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. G-7 countries are the world’s largest democratic (freely elected) economies, representing roughly half of the world’s wealth (but only 10% of the world’s population). President Biden and the leaders of the other G-7 countries had a confab yesterday in Germany and issued a joint communique (copy below) that says, in part, it’s OK to invest in natural gas and LNG infrastructure.
There’s no way for the Bidenistas to put lipstick on this pig–but they tried anyway. The Biden administration’s Dept. of Energy published its annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) yesterday. The report shows HUGE fossil fuel industry job losses in 2021. The report finds the fuels technology sector experienced job losses totaling 29,271 jobs in 2021, down 3.1% from 2020, with the majority of losses coming from the fossil fuel industry.