Left Furious with NY Gov Hochul for Blocking Gas Ban Hookup Law
A couple of weeks ago, we told you that a pending lawsuit had stalled the implementation of the All-Electric Buildings Act (passed in 2023), which was supposed to require that any new home or business being built in New York could not (by law) connect to natural gas (see NY’s Jan. 1 Ban on New Gas Hookups Delayed by Lawsuit). We told you that Gov. Hochul agreed to delay the law’s implementation while the lawsuit plays out. But there’s much more to the story, just coming to light. It seems that Hochul wants to use the lawsuit to overturn the law! That’s called “sue-and-settle,” something the left typically uses to push through unpopular regulations that it can’t get via the legislature. It seems that Hochul is now using it in reverse (against her own party), which we find hilarious. Read More “Left Furious with NY Gov Hochul for Blocking Gas Ban Hookup Law”
Last week, the Baker Hughes U.S. national rig count got wacked good, losing 10 rigs from the previous week. The national count went from 554 to 544 (as of Wednesday, when BH reported the numbers). Bummer. It had gained rigs for each of the prior three weeks. Rigs in the Marcellus/Utica remained the same last week after gaining one rig the week before. Pennsylvania has held at 18 for two weeks in a row. Ohio was the same at 13 rigs, which it has operated since September 26. West Virginia maintained its 7 rigs, which it has operated since May 30. There were 24 rigs targeting the Marcellus and 14 targeting the Utica, for a combined 38 rigs in the M-U. 
In the space of two months, the NYMEX “front month” natural gas futures contract went from bumping around under $3/MMBtu (million British thermal units) to the mid-$4 range. It’s been an amazing ride. And it would be easy to think “we’ve arrived” and can kiss $3 territory goodbye. That would be a mistake. While we earnestly hope the price will remain where it is, in the $4 range, analysts, including EBW Analytics Group, caution that for U.S. natural gas prices, “immediate-term volatility risks remain high into December expiration.” Volatility means the price can swing wildly at a moment’s notice. Where is the NYMEX and spot/physical price now? And where might prices go over the next couple of weeks? 
In June 2023, Dominion Energy announced plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County near Richmond (see 
Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) will hold a meeting on Tuesday, December 9, to consider whether or not to accept a petition by radical green groups, including the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project, to “study” the issue of increasing setbacks for shale drilling so far that it would ban ALL new Marcellus/Utica drilling in the Keystone State. The EQB tabled a decision on accepting the petition back in April (see 
UGI, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations and one of PA’s largest utility companies, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its newest LNG peak shaver facility in Carlisle (Cumberland County), PA, yesterday. In November 2020, UGI launched the operation of a new 2-million-gallon LNG peak shaver in Bethlehem, PA (see 
In July, MDN told you that Talen Energy, a leading energy producer in the U.S., which owns and operates approximately 10.7 gigawatts (GW) of power infrastructure, had announced the acquisition of two gas-fired power plants: one located near Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania, and the other in Guernsey County, in eastern Ohio (see 
This is really rich. Venture Global (VG), now the second-largest LNG (liquefied natural gas) exporter in the U.S., is accusing Shell of waging a “three-year campaign” to damage VG’s LNG business. VG’s Calcasieu Pass (CP) LNG export facility in Louisiana began operations in March 2022. Typically, a new LNG facility will load and ship several (maybe two or three) cargoes to “work out the kinks” and ensure everything is working as advertised. VG, using loopholes in its signed contracts, maintained that it was working out the kinks long after it began shipping. After *hundreds of cargoes* were shipped, CP’s customers were still not receiving their contracted (at lower prices) shipments. Shell, along with several other customers, sued (see 
Yesterday, LNG exporter Venture Global announced that Tokyo Gas has signed a 20-year contract to purchase 1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG from VG. Not many details were shared. We don’t know which facility (current or planned) the gas will come from. Financial terms were not disclosed. What we do know is that contracted shipments will begin sometime in 2030. As with all of these deals, our interest is in whether more Marcellus/Utica molecules will feed the plant doing the liquefying. It’s a good bet they will. 
As MDN previously reported, TC Energy’s Virginia Reliability Project (VRP) in the Hampton Roads region (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Newport News area) started construction in the second quarter of this year. It held a ceremony in September to commemorate the final weld (see 
Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) approved a Tentative Order by a 3-2 vote, proposing a statewide model tariff (tax) to manage the growing impact of large-load customers, such as AI data centers, on the electric grid (see 
NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG is being developed on a 984-acre site along the Brownsville Ship Channel (Brownsville, Texas), approximately 3 miles east of Port Isabel. The facility currently has five trains under construction, with space at the site to double capacity. One month ago, Rio Grande LNG announced a favorable final investment decision (FID) to move forward with the construction of Train 5 (see 
Planned natural gas capacity through 2030 remains steady compared with the past decade, according to new U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data analyzed by Dr. John Bistline, a leading researcher on energy systems and climate policy. The geography is shifting, Bistline noted, and new gas-fired units are being increasingly concentrated in regions facing sharp load growth and accelerated retirements. The map below shows the locations of existing and planned gas-fired power plants. It’s no mystery and should surprise no one that most of the planned new plants are located in the northeast, an area served by the Marcellus/Utica. 
One of the significant stories of 2024 in the Ohio Utica was about Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry, Ohio, that processes and transports fracking waste for disposal. AMS ran into trouble when it ran out of money. The Martins Ferry facility in Belmont County, where waste is temporarily stored, had vastly exceeded its permitted limit of 600 tons (storing over 10,000 tons), resulting in a permit violation. The Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against the company in March 2024 to compel compliance and require cleanup of the facility. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) stepped in to handle the cleanup. As of May 2025, cleaning and testing were completed (see 
Two pipeline kingpins are engaged in a deathmatch with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to get their competing pipeline projects approved. One is Williams’ Transco Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SESE), the other is EQT’s MVP Southgate project. Both projects would be built in the same general area, starting at the same point near Chatham, Virginia, and ending near Eden, North Carolina. Both claim they have customers ready to take their gas. In a July FERC filing, Williams said that its project could easily handle Southgate MVP’s capacity by adding meter tubes and regulation at an existing station (see 
Lordstown is a small village in southern Trumbull County, Ohio (population 3,332). The village has one operational gas-fired power plant, the Lordstown Energy Center, generating 940 megawatts (MW) of electricity. A second gas-fired power plant, the Trumbull Energy Center, is under construction and due to come online in 2026. It will generate 950 MW of electricity. Developers are proposing to build a $3.6 billion, 1.65 million square-foot data center campus in Lordstown on the site of the former GM complex (south of OpenAI’s Stargate AI data center campus). The developers filed a petition with the Ohio Supreme Court against Lordstown, claiming the village is blocking consideration of their proposal in violation of zoning procedures.