Protesters Want PECO to Abandon Plans for NatGas Reliability Stn
Headquartered in Philadelphia, PECO (a subsidiary of Exelon Corp.) is Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, delivering power to more than 1.6 million electric customers and more than 532,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. Last fall PECO floated a plan to build a natural gas reliability station in Marple Township (Delaware County, PA) to allow the company to distribute more natural gas into Delaware County through 11.5 miles of new natural gas main lines. As you might expect, the neighbors in the densely populated area of the reliability station are up in arms over the plan.
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The Enverus U.S. rig count continues to climb (a good sign). For the week ending April 7, the U.S. rig count climbed another 9 active rigs to 528. The Marcellus lost two rigs and ended the week with 31 active rigs. The Ohio Utica added one rig and now has 13 active rigs. The M-U combined has 44 active rigs. The other major shale gas play, the Haynesville, stayed even with 48 active rigs.
We sometimes wonder if politicians understand how STUPID they sometimes sound (
Last MDN told you that the West Virginia House of Delegates had passed House Bill (HB) 2581, which changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see 
Prepare for some mental gymnastics. Limber up your brain so you can follow this story. As you know, some big pension funds and investment firms have been on a “divestment” kick, eliminating their investments in filthy fossil fuel companies (see 
A month ago MDN told you about some of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica announcing new or expanded ESG (environment, social, governance) programs during their quarterly updates (see 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) most recent monthly short-term energy outlook (STEO) contains some disheartening numbers regarding natural gas production and consumption. EIA, with some of the best number crunchers in the business, predicts natural gas production will hit 91.41 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2021 and 93.29 Bcf/d in 2022. The current all-time high was 93.06 Bcf/d, hit in 2019 prior to the pandemic. That’s the good news. The bad news is that consumption (i.e. demand) is forecast to decrease even further this year and next year.
There are those who talk a good game about fighting back against the cultural rot that is consuming our country, fighting back against those who spread the false gospel of socialism and claim that capitalism is somehow evil. There are those who talk a good game about supporting fossil fuel energy. And then, there are those who actually do something about it. Talk is cheap. Action is expensive. You can classify Nick Deiuliis, CEO of CNX Resources, as an action guy. Yesterday Nick announced an exciting new mentorship program for high schoolers.
This is not good. The Weymouth compressor, the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project experienced a third “unplanned release” of natural gas yesterday. No word yet on how much gas was released or why. The project is already under an intense microscope with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) threatening to shut it down after only went online in January (see 
Last week the State of New Jersey, along with co-conspirator the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, filed their responses to defend their indefensible actions in blocking PennEast Pipeline’s eminent domain taking of land owned or controlled by NJ. It was their last, desperate attempt to avoid having a lower court ruling overturned. They gave it their best shot, but we think they came up short.
Last week we brought you the earthshattering news of a resurrection–the resurrection of the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project in the New York City area (see 
Last week a group of U.S. Senators, including John Kennedy (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), introduced the Natural Gas Export Expansion Act. The bill, if it becomes law, will remove regulatory bottlenecks for LNG (liquefied natural gas) and increase LNG exports to the more than 160 countries in the World Trade Organization.
Each quarter the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issues an update on Utica (and Marcellus) oil and natural gas production. ODNR no longer issues a summary press release as they once did, which means the quarterly updates kind of fell off our radar. An astute MDN subscriber emailed to ask about the 4Q numbers for Ohio. We checked and discovered we had only reported on 2Q numbers for all of 2020! Today we correct that oversight. ODNR publishes a detailed spreadsheet of all active wells showing oil and gas production by well. We make a copy of that spreadsheet, enhance it to make it more usable, and link to it–for each quarter in 2020. We also do our own sorting to show you the top 25 shale gas wells and top 25 shale oil wells for each quarter in 2020.