Repsol Pursues MiQ Responsible Gas Cert for Marcellus Production
Spanish-owed Repsol owns 214,000 net acres of leases in the Marcellus Shale, primarily located in northeastern Pennsylvania in Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties. Part of Repsol’s acreage number includes 43,000 acres recently purchased from Rockdale Marcellus (see Sale of Rockdale PA Assets to Repsol Closes – $220M Cash, $2M Debt). In what has become an undeniable trend, Repsol is seeking to have all of its Marcellus production (roughly 1.5 billion cubic feet per day from ~680 wells) certified as “responsibly produced.”
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The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties for the purposes of assessing property taxes. The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule last summer that was, quite frankly, a mess. The rule created a complex system that is currently mired in controversy with both drillers and landowners confused about how much of a tax bill they will owe this year. There were two competing bills in this year’s session to correct the cockup from last year. Only one of them has survived and is close to passing.
As we write about today in a couple of different posts, EQT CEO Toby Rice has a bold vision to “unleash American LNG” to, in part, supply American natural gas to our friends in Europe. Rice’s plan is not an overnight plan, but it can work and it can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions floating in Mom Earth’s atmosphere (if you care about such things, we personally do not). There are currently 14 (!) LNG export facilities approved by the U.S. that could be built and come online in the next year or two. That’s enough new plants to double our current LNG exports. Why haven’t the backhoes begun to dig on any of these projects? Two roadblocks.
While it may be unseemly to discuss this, U.S. LNG exports are booming because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin is threatening to withhold natural gas flows into Europe and Europe is scrambling to try and find new sources, including imports of American LNG. The biggest winners (so far) are U.S. LNG natural gas producers and the export facilities that liquefy and ship the gas. And don’t forget the LNG container ships too. Everyone is making a LOT more money right now on LNG exports. A Reuters article says the U.S. has recorded record export volumes (and profits) over the past three months.
New York’s newest governor, Kathy Hochul, is following in the footsteps of her former boss, Andrew Cuomo, by pledging to block natural gas hookups for all new construction across New York State. It’s insane. Such a ban will cause even more people to leave the state (they’re already leaving in droves). And yet she and the leftist Democrats pulling her strings persist in this path of self-annihilation. Republicans in the NY State Senate have had enough and are fighting back.
President Joe Biden and his surrogates have been blaming U.S. oil and gas producers for not producing more in the face of prices going through the roof. Big Oil & Gas have responded that the Bidenistas refuse to even talk with them about important issues, like onerous new regulations, blocking new pipelines, etc. It looks like the Bidenistas are finally desperate enough to at least sit down and talk. According to Bloomberg (not always a reliable source) Dept. of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is having conversations with several oil companies at the CERAWeek conference.
Yesterday the West Virginia House Energy and Manufacturing Committee held a public hearing to elicit feedback and comments on Senate Bill (SB) 694, a bill that will, after nearly a decade, provide for forced pooling for shale wells in the state. The bill has already passed the WV Senate and likely will come up for a vote by the full House this week. Based on support from both drillers and landowner groups, it appears this bill is a done deal. Even surface owners are “OK” with the bill. Not thrilled, but OK. About the only dissent we could detect from the hearing is that some believe it doesn’t go far enough with forced pooling.
In early 2013 the Pittsburgh International Airport and Allegheny County, PA signed a deal with CONSOL Energy (now CNX Resources) to lease 9,000 acres surrounding the airport for natural gas drilling (see 
Hackers, believed to be “state-sponsored,” aggressively targeted computers belonging to current and former employees at two dozen major natural gas suppliers and exporters. The aim seemed to be an attempt to cripple U.S. LNG exporting ability. One of the targets of the attacks was EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The activity occurred on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. You do the math to figure out who the “state sponsor” of the attacks was.
For over a year the oil and gas industry has been swept up in net-zero carbon emissions mania. We can provide countless examples of M-U drillers and pipeline companies jumping on the net-zero carbon bandwagon (
Even though construction is completed for the Mariner East pipeline system, anti-fossil fuelers are still lying about the project and its status. Energy Transfer said during its recent quarterly update that Mariner East is in the process of being commissioned, i.e. tested (see 
In June 2020, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (Democrat) announced an indictment of Cabot Oil & Gas for allegations of methane migration going back more than a decade, long before he was elected as AG (see 
Sort of a mixed bag with respect to recent prices for natural gas. While the spot cash price as a national average has slipped a bit, down 83 cents over the past week to $4.84, the NYMEX futures contract price for the “front month” of April soared past $5. In fact, if you look at the NYMEX contracts for each month over the next one year, they are ALL closing above $5/MMBtu.