Upstate NY Bitcoin Miner Defies Enviro-Left, Operates NatGas Plant
New York State has become aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. NY is openly prejudiced and discriminates against oil and natural gas companies. Earlier this year (in May) we told you about a “bitcoin miner” that uses natural gas to produce electricity to power some serious computers (see Upstate NY Bitcoin Miner Faces Opposition from Enviro-Left). Even though the company is doing its best to atone for its “sin” of using natural gas via buying indulgences (aka carbon offsets), environmentalist wackos oppose the facility located in Dresden, near beautiful Seneca Lake (one of New York’s Finger Lakes) in the central part of the state.
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What’s the best way to defeat an enemy? Without ever firing a shot, of course. Convince your enemy to bow to and obey your commands. That’s what comes to mind with one of this country’s enemies, Saudi Arabia, and a recent “technical workshop” they held via videoconference with some 100 oil and gas companies around the world. The Saudis (i.e. OPEC) were essentially telling these other oil companies, with a big smile plastered across their faces, just how much oil and gas these other companies will be permitted to produce, and when they can produce it. And these other companies, some of them in this country, obsequiously bowed to their Saudi overlords. Sickening, no?
In October 2020 the Sisters of the Corn (our name for a group of leftist nuns in Lancaster County, PA) filed yet another frivolous lawsuit against Williams over a pipeline that crosses their land–a pipeline (Atlantic Sunrise) that has been up and running safely for years (see 
Although the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is forecasting an average Henry Hub NYMEX price of $5.80 for the fourth quarter of this year, and a slightly higher average of $5.90 for January 2022 (see today’s companion story), Platts analysts are out with a shocking forecast of their own. Platts says if natural gas drillers don’t return to more drilling soon, the price of natgas at Henry Hub will spike up to $12-$14/MMBtu this winter.
Each month the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issues a Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). In the latest STEO update, released two days ago, EIA predicts the Henry Hub spot price will average $5.80/MMBtu in 4Q21, which is $1.80/MMBtu higher than EIA forecasted in their September STEO (see 
“All aboard! Next stop, responsibly sourced gas.” Both the Marcellus/Utica and the Haynesville shale plays have emerged as the major shale basins for so-called certified natural gas. Certified for what? Certified that the companies extracting it and (now) the companies flowing it through pipelines (i.e. the midstream) are doing so “responsibly.” We guess they did so irresponsibly before, right? What exactly is responsibly sourced gas (RSG) and how is the midstream (and upstream) tackling certification?
If we were an investor in either Occidental Petroleum or Worley, we’d be very worried. In a conversation with Daniel Yergin, vice chairman, IHS Markit, both Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, and Chris Ashton, CEO and managing director of Worley discuss their partnership to build a large-scale direct air carbon capture facility in the Permian Basin (expected to startup in 2024) and the potential to scale the technology further. Hollub and Ashton are gambling the future of their companies on so-called carbon capture.
Glenn O. Hawbaker, Inc.
Whew, it’s now reopened for business. It’s been 21 days since Warren Buffett’s Cove Point LNG export facility closed all the way down for annual maintenance (see 
Joe Biden is completely inept. Everyone can see it, whether they publicly admit it or not. He’s blown it. For any given decision he’s made, he’s made the wrong decision 100% of the time. Yesterday we told you about Biden’s preference for OPEC oil over American oil (see 
EQT CEO Toby Rice laid the blame for the developing world energy crisis, particularly Europe’s lack of access to natural gas, at the feet of radical environmentalists. If not for the radicals and their constant frivolous lawsuits blocking pipelines and LNG export facilities, such infrastructure would already have been built and would be providing abundant, cheap, clean-burning Marcellus/Utica natural gas to other regions of the U.S. and to Europe.
In recent weeks we’ve been asked the same question by MDN subscribers several times: “With the price of natural gas through the roof, why aren’t Marcellus/Utica drillers drilling more?” In a word, it’s because of hedging. Most drillers have hedged, or pre-sold under contract, most of the output they plan to produce for the balance of this year–at prices MUCH lower than those we’re seeing right now. There is no incentive to drill more. “Fine, but couldn’t they just drill more and sell the new output that’s not hedged at the higher spot prices we see now?” They could, except to drill more means they need more capital (money) to do the drilling, violating their announced budgets (their “guidance”) and violating the expectations of touchy investors and stockholders. Public companies are boxed in. Their hands are tied.
Remember back in May 2019 (the good old days, prior to hyperinflation, gasoline prices through the roof, electric and natgas prices through the roof) when Rick Perry (an actual, thinking adult) was Secretary of Energy and he and others at DOE referred to LNG exports as “molecules of U.S. freedom”? The Democrat media (i.e. mainstream media) went berserk. The arrogant “reporters” at the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, NBC, CBS, ABC, et al ad nauseum pilloried and guffawed and maligned and ridiculed Perry and DOE for referring to U.S. LNG exports as “freedom gas” and “molecules of freedom” (