PA is Nation’s Top Electricity Net Exporter Thx to Marcellus Shale
Yesterday MDN brought you a post about the dramatic increase in natural gas-fired electric plants in the Marcellus/Utica, particularly Pennsylvania (see NatGas-Fired Power Plants in M-U See Dramatic Increase 2015-2019). Today we have another post (also from the U.S. Energy Information Administration) about gas-fired electric power. Gas-fracking giant Pennsylvania was the largest net exporter of electricity in 2019, and gas-phobic California was the largest net importer of electricity in 2019…complete with ongoing, severe blackouts.
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Coincidentally, a second dehydration unit fire occurred early Saturday morning, also in Pennsylvania, but this second fire occurred across the state in southwest PA. Our lead story today is about a dehydration unit fire at a well pad in Lycoming County (see Two-Alarm Fire at Alta Resources Well Pad in Lycoming County, PA). The second fire happened at a dehydration unit at a compressor station in Greene County owned and operated by Equitrans Midstream.
New Jersey Resources Corp. (NJR), one of five owners in the PennEast Pipeline (with a 20% stake), had some interesting things to say about the PennEast project during its annual Analyst Day event held last Monday. NJR CEO Stephen Westhoven said during the virtual event that “uncertainty around an in-service date” has prompted his company to pull the project “completely” from its financial growth projections through 2024. What does that mean?
Natural gas-fired electric generation has increased in most U.S. regions since 2015, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Annual electricity generation from natural gas power plants in the U.S. increased by 31% in the Northeast region, by 20% in the Central region, and by 17% in the South region between 2015 and 2019.
Earlier this week the NYMEX natural gas futures contract for December rolled off and the January contract became the “front contract” being traded. The latest storage numbers–how much gas has *not* been withdrawn from storage–combined with weather forecasts and computerized trading to hammer prices. Natgas was down 10 cents on Wednesday, and down another 27 cents yesterday, for a combined 37 cent loss over the past two days. Yuck. But it’s not all bad news, at least here in the Marcellus/Utica.
The first of 10 LNG (liquefied natural gas) mini-trains at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island, Georgia export facility went online in December of last year (see 
The clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (one of whom quotes from children’s books in her opinions) have signaled they will overturn, again (for the second or third time) a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allows the 92% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from finishing its work by installing pipe under or through creeks and rivers. We have the Sierra Club to thank for the lawsuit, and colluding liberal Democrat judges to thank for continued obstruction of this legally-permitted project from finishing.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is in major butt-covering mode with the state’s conventional (non-shale) oil and gas industry. During an industry-led advisory committee meeting held yesterday, members of PA’s conventional oil and gas industry delivered some rather blunt comments to DEP Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management Scott Perry, accusing the DEP of “ramming the most punitive set of regulations on this industry to date.”
Mob rule now prevails in New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio. In February we told you about a mob of anti-fossil fuelers attempting to block the final few feet of construction for a 6.8-mile natural gas pipeline stretching from Brownsville to North Brooklyn (see 
The Enverus U.S. rig count continues to rise. Two weeks ago the nationwide count was 382. As of Wednesday, the count stood at 396, up 14. Over the past week, the Marcellus shale play in northeastern PA lost a rig. The combined M-U rig count is now 32.
Yesterday CNX CEO Nick Deluliis was one of the keynote speakers at the annual DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event, held virtually this year. Normally DUG is held at the Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Deluliis’ talk was wide-ranging, but much of it concentrated on mergers and acquisitions, particularly M&A in the Marcellus/Utica. Deluliis is not much interested in horizontal M&A for CNX, but he is intrigued by vertical M&A.
In June 2019 the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Retirement System sued EQT claiming EQT’s executives had made false and misleading statements about their 2017 purchase of Rice Energy–claims about cost efficiencies that never materialized, and claims about the location of Rice leases that were not as close to EQT’s acreage as claimed (see