Holy Methane Batman! NYMEX NatGas Price Makes a Run for $6
Yesterday the “front month” October contract for the Henry Hub NYMEX price of natural gas soared 11% and settled at $5.706/MMBtu, the highest closing price since Feb. 21, 2014. Intraday trading went well over $6 per MMBtu. We keep seeing the word “contagion” as the main explanation for the soaring price. No, not the COVID contagion, but the psychological contagion of high prices globally. The price of natgas in Europe and Asia is skyrocketing (in the $25-$30/MMBtu range), which causes traders here to anticipate demand for our gas (via exports) will remain strong, driving up domestic prices. Ultimately fear drives the financial markets more than any other factor.
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A long-fought-over wastewater injection well in Plum Boro (Allegheny County, Pittsburgh suburb) finally opened for business earlier this year, having overcome all sorts of smears and slanders and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see
States often get excited when the federal government deigns to hand out taxpayer money in dribs and drabs, a billion here and a billion there. Yet the best source of money to pump into an economy is private funds, invested by private companies. Private investment
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, high global demand and low global supply are contributing to the rapid increase in U.S. propane spot prices. At one point last year, propane spot prices averaged just above $0.20 per gallon. Right now it’s averaging $1.33 per gallon!
Yesterday we brought you the good news that two new LNG export facilities will, in all likelihood, begin full-scale operations by the end of this year (see
Yesterday we told you that a program would air last night on the Fox Business channel featuring Cameron Energy, a conventional oil driller in western Pennsylvania (see
Score another victory for the forces of evil, by which we mean leftwing, wackadoodle anti-fossil fuel extremists. Just a short time ago MDN received the statement below from PennEast Pipeline that states, in our words, they’ve given up. Throwing in the towel. Dead. PennEast will not get built. You can’t say we didn’t warn you this may happen.
Spoiled rotten kids who never receive an occasional spank spank when they throw a temper tantrum while growing up, grow up to be spoiled rotten young adults. That’s what we’re seeing at the overpriced Ohio State University (OSU) where a group of petulant students is demanding the university stop construction work on a combined heat and power plant (CHP) project in the next 72 hours, or else…
Thanks to a sharp MDN reader/friend, we were alerted to a rather bizarre situation with the current issue of the Youngstown Business Journal. Once upon a time, the YBJ wrote encouraging (and accurate) stories about the Utica Shale industry and its many benefits in the Buckeye State. Lately, the YBJ has been taking potshots at the Utica, claiming it hasn’t panned out as advertised. Take the latest MidSeptember edition where two articles appear. One article boldly states that after 10 years there is “No Gusher of Jobs” in the Utica. Yet another article contradicts the first and states, “It’s Construction Jobs in Gas and Oil.” Bizarre.
Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6 law granted billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy bribed state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million to a small group of insiders, including the now-former Speaker of the House (see
In early 2019, EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (and in the Marcellus/Utica) settled a class action lawsuit in West Virginia with landowners and rights owners ending EQT’s practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks (see
We’ve noticed nearly all of the public companies (and many private companies) in the oil and gas space are talking about their ESG (environmental, social, governance) programs. There’s a lot of hot air surrounding ESG programs. How does one separate out fact from fiction? Enverus, the company that produces (in our opinion) the best and most accurate weekly rig count numbers, has a solution. Enverus has developed a new framework/system to compare one oil/gas company’s ESG efforts against its competitors. Of the top 10 best ESG programs in the oil and gas industry are four companies (drillers) in the Marcellus/Utica. Coming in at the #1 position is none other than the largest natural gas driller in the country: EQT.
Enbridge Gas is holding a binding open season for C1 (methane) transportation services from St. Clair (DTE) and/or Bluewater to the Dawn Hub in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) starting Nov. 1, 2023 for a minimum of five years. Shippers seeking access to a reliable, cost-effective means to move gas from St. Clair (DTE) and/or Bluewater to Dawn can submit bids for up to 62,000 GJ/d of annual capacity (12-month term) and up to 107,000 GJ/d capacity for winter only (5-month term). Marcellus/Utica gas is eligible since it finds its way all the way to the Dawn Hub.
In April, CNX Resources Corp. announced instead of just blowing smoke about ESG (environmental, social, governance) with pretty slide shows and hoopla, they would donate $30 million to local, underserved communities and populations in the tri-state region (see