NYMEX Futures Price Closes 3 Pennies Short of $9/MMBtu
We are on the cusp of seeing the NYMEX Henry Hub futures price close above $9/MMBtu. Yesterday it closed at $8.97/MMBtu. Will today be the day it goes above $9? Probably. The price hit $9.40 during intraday trading yesterday but slid back down the hill just a bit before the closing bell. We are now at 14-year highs for the NYMEX price of gas. We’re still nowhere near the all-time high of close to $15.78 hit in December 2005. The scary thought is that we may well exceed the old record at some point in the next six months (see Investment Firm Predicts U.S. NatGas Crisis Coming in 2022). Here’s an update on yesterday’s surge in the NYMEX…
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We have mixed emotions about Elliott Management, a so-called activist investment firm. On the one hand, Elliott assisted the Rice boys in their takeover of EQT in July 2019, which turned out to be a very positive thing (see 
The International Gas Union (IGU), Snam, and Rystad Energy partnered to produce and have just released the Global Gas Report 2022 (GGR). According to the authors, if the world wants to limit mythical global warming to 1.5C and fulfill so-called net-zero ambitions by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2025. (You know we don’t believe global warming bullcrapus, but bear with us here.) The GGR (full copy below) says the best, most realistic way to reduce GHG emissions and hit those targets involves–yep–natural gas. In fact, natgas will, says the report, play a “critical role” in decarbonization initiatives.
On Monday MDN brought you the news that Joe Biden is renominating Richard “Dick” Glick to serve yet another undistinguished term at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
The radicals of the Clean Air Council (CAC) are claiming a (very small) victory in their campaign against processing NGLs at the Marcus Hook refinery located near Philadelphia. CAC is CACkling that they have forced Energy Transfer, builder of the mighty Mariner East (ME) pipeline system (a pipeline that CAC couldn’t stop), to back down on how permits are issued for the Marcus Hook facility–the place where NGLs from ME end up for processing and loading for export. The end result is…well…not much. Nothing will really change. The same volume of NGLs will still flow to Marcus Hook, and the same volume of NGLs will be loaded onto ships and exported to other countries. The only thing that changes is that ET spends more time and pays more money to obtain a single large permit instead of two separate, smaller permits. We’ll explain.
When a pipeline company considers whether or not to build a new pipeline, the company conducts an “open season”–a time when drillers (producers), traders, buyers, and others who want guaranteed capacity along that pipeline can sign long-term contracts. Such contracts guarantee pipeline companies will be able to make back the considerable amount of money they have to spend to build the pipeline. What happens when those 5-, 10-, and 20-year contracts expire?
In a post on EIA’s Today in Energy, the now-politicized EIA attempts to prop up the tattered reputation of the Biden administration with respect to natural gas using the headline, “FERC approves new natural gas pipeline projects to increase U.S. exports.” We excitedly read the post hoping to spot a project or two that had escaped our notice, something that would end up flowing more Marcellus/Utica molecules to other regions. It wasn’t until the very last sentence we discovered the truth that even EIA could not ignore: “In 2021, we estimate that the United States added 7.44 Bcf/d of new pipeline capacity, the lowest amount added to interstate transmission since 2016.” In other words, new pipeline additions haven’t been this low since the last days of the Lord Obama administration.
We’ve tackled the issue of why there isn’t more oil and natural gas drilling happening in the Marcellus/Utica and beyond even with prices for both commodities through the proverbial roof. Not that many years ago prices were a fraction of what they are now and yet the drilling industry would not, could not stop drilling new wells, flooding the market with product and crashing prices. Now, it’s the reverse! It seems nothing will incentivize drillers to drill any new wells beyond enough to keep production steady. Why? An article in the Wall Street Journal seeks to answer the question, definitively.
The world’s so-called leaders will meet in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 2-3 to commemorate the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and celebrate 50 years of failed global environmental action. It will be another attempt at establishing a Green World Order–subjugating all of humanity under the banner of “saving” us from global warming. It’s all a sham, of course. Stockholm+50, as it’s called, is the rise of the parasitic New Communism using the environmental movement as its host. Here’s something for the delegates at Stockholm+50 to consider and debate: How will the world react to half of its population, around 4 billion people, dying from starvation if fossil energy is outlawed?
In March 2021, Eureka Resources announced plans to build a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility in Dimock (Susquehanna County), Pennsylvania (see 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Last year Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when the Dionysus well pad was rejected by town supervisors (see 
Efforts by brave states like Texas and West Virginia in fighting back against companies like BlackRock who demand divestment from any activity involving the extraction of fossil fuels is having an effect. The divestors are beginning to squeal like little piglets. In June 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that bans state investments in banks, investors, and other companies that have cut ties with the oil and gas industry (see