Illinois EPA Approves EmberClear Gas-Fired Power Plant in Pawnee
In June 2017, MDN reported that EmberClear, based in Houston, TX, wants to build a $1 billion, 1,100 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant about 15 miles from Springfield, Illinois, in Pawnee (see NatGas and Coal Go to War in Central Illinois). In April 2018, Springfield city alderman approved a deal for what is now called the Lincoln Land Energy Center to purchase “at least” 80,000 gallons of water per day from City Water, Light and Power (CWLP) for a cool $29,000 per month (see Central Illinois Gas-Fired Power Plant One Step Closer to Reality). The radicalized Sierra Club tried to block the project by blocking a key permit (see Sierra Club Targets Proposed Central Illinois Gas-Fired Power Plant). They failed.
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One of the criticisms MDN has levied against the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is that each state is attempting to “go it alone” with respect to attracting a $2 billion investment from the federal government for a hydrogen and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) hub in our region (see 
It finally seems as if economic activity is picking up once again in the Marcellus/Utica. And we don’t mean just shale drillers and pipeline companies. The companies that supply those companies–the supply chain–is seeing an uptick in business, according to an article appearing in the Pittsburgh Business Times. Companies like U.S. Steel, MSA, and Steel Nation are reporting strong increases in sales in 2022.
Not all that long ago, the spot (physically traded) price of natural gas around the Marcellus/Utica region, and the regions it feeds, including the Southeastern U.S., had some of the lowest spot prices for natural gas in the U.S. We recall being excited to see the price per Mcf (or MMBtu) get above $1 in northeastern PA. That all changed over the past year or so. According to RBN Energy, “cash and forward prices in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast have rocketed, becoming the highest gas prices in the land, and in some cases are at never-before-seen levels for this time of year.” What happened? Why is the price so high now, in a region flooded with natural gas, where once we couldn’t get the price to go over a dollar?
One of the questions MDN editor Jim Willis (who lives in New York State) often gets at family gatherings and the occasional conference (when folks find out he writes about “fracking” and “shale energy”) is this: “Will New York ever get fracking?” Jim’s tongue-in-cheek answer is, “When pigs fly!” The slightly longer answer is that the ignominious politician Andrew Cuomo, while he was governor, slipped a permanent ban on fracking into law as part of the 2020 state budget bill (see 
Most of the time, when we write about LNG (liquefied natural gas), we write about exports. In particular, U.S. exports. The International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers (GIIGNL) advocates for the other end of the deal–those importing LNG. GIIGNL recently issued its 2022 annual report (full copy below). It really is quite fascinating. The report includes a list of long- and medium-term contracts (>4 years) signed in 2021–who the buyer is, who the seller is, and which countries the gas is going from and to.
Boom! The hammer has dropped on five of six companies identified by West Virginia as engaging in “boycotts of fossil fuel companies.” In June, WV State Treasurer Riley Moore sent a letter to six big banks/investment firms alerting them they are about to be added to the state’s “blacklist” for violating policies by not investing or doing business with fossil fuel companies (see 
Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 2644 was passed into law, becoming Act 96 of 2022. The new law requires the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to use a portion of new federal funding to create a grant program to support experienced well-plugging companies that work to maximize the volume of orphan wells being plugged in the Commonwealth. It also keeps the right to raise bonding amounts for conventional wells with the legislature rather than allowing PA’s unelected Democrat bureaucrats in the bowels of the DEP’s Environmental Quality Board (EQB) from doing it–which has the left screaming bloody murder.
EQT Corporation, the biggest natural gas producer in the United States (and a pureplay Marcellus/Utica driller), issued its second quarter 2022 update yesterday. The company raked in $550 million in free cash flow during 2Q and produced 5.5 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of natural gas. But don’t look for EQT to increase production any time soon–not until (says top management) it can get more of its molecules to markets outside of the M-U. The company’s answer to moving more molecules is to try and expand LNG exports from the East Coast.
Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (with major assets in West Virginia), the fifth largest natgas producer in the country and the second largest LNG exporter, issued its second quarter 2022 update yesterday. During 2Q, Antero placed a new compressor station online in West Virginia, boosting Marcellus gas flows by 160 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day). The new Castle Peak compressor station will be expanded to 240 MMcf/d in 2023. Antero generated $664 million in free cash flow and $765 million in net income during 2Q. Big company. Important company.
Diversified Energy (sadly) continues to expand outside the Marcellus/Utica region. Yesterday the company announced it is paying $240 million to buy some of ConocoPhillips’ upstream assets in Oklahoma and Texas. The assets include roughly 1,500 wells spanning 250,000 acres. Diversified, which now owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells used to be solely focused on the Appalachian region–until last year.
Yesterday MDN brought you the sad and tragic news that West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has sold out. He put his party and whatever secret offer they made him above the good of the country and agreed to a Green New Deal bill Chuck “the schmuck” Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are pushing (see