Here’s Why Natural Gas Heating is NOT Going Away Anytime Soon
Not a day that goes by without a story in Big Media announcing another municipality has passed (or is considering passing) a law/regulation prohibiting new homes and businesses from using natural gas for heating, cooking, etc. The proffered solution by these foolish dunderheads is that new structures must use electric for heat. Eventually (like here in New York by 2050), not only new structures but existing homes and businesses will have to convert to all-electric too (see New York Residents Must Dump Oil & Gas Furnaces by 2050). Except, that’s all a fiction.
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Last June New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to not even consider hearing a case involving PennEast Pipeline (see 
Last week we told you about anti-fossil fuel zealots (including THE Delaware Riverkeeper) attempting to convince the incoming Biden administration to block the now fully permitted and authorized LNG export terminal New Fortress plans to build on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River in Gibbstown (see 
In our book, methane (CH4) is methane and needs no justification to be drilled for and widely used. But for those who drill for it, or flow it through pipelines, methane now has to be perceived as “green” or risk going the way of the dodo bird. This is how the game is played. Various organizations have sprung up in an effort to prove drillers (and others) are harvesting and moving methane in an environmentally safe manner. One of those systems for certifying the greenness of gas is the Responsible Gas program by Independent Energy Standards Corp. (see 
The Enverus U.S. oil and gas rig count slipped by one to 406 over the past week. The Marcellus play stayed even with 32 active rigs. However, in a good sign, the Ohio Utica picked up 2 new rigs to close the week with 8 active rigs (total of 40 active rigs in the M-U).
Big Green (Democrat) organizations are feeling full of themselves following the Biden/Harris election and winning control of the Senate. They’re making some pretty big boasts of what they’ll demand from Biden and Chuck Schumer. Demands like no new pipelines, ban natural gas everywhere, force all new cars to be electric, yada yada yada. One of the worst of the worst of the Big Green groups is the radical National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In a blog post yesterday, the New York chapter of the NRDC lays out its 2021 plans that include their intent to try and block the construction of the New Jersey LNG export facility and block construction of the PennEast Pipeline in Pennsylvania.
U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) set a new all-time record high in December, averaging 9.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The results in December were more than three times higher than the reduced export levels of last summer. Marcellus/Utica gas played a key role in those exports.
The average price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana was $2.05 per million BTUs (MMBtu) in 2020. That’s the lowest average annual price in at least 25 years, maybe longer. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says while natgas usage rose in gas-fired electric plants, usage dropped for residential, commercial, and industrial users due to the ongoing pandemic.
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani issued a couple of rulings in the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit that should encourage landowners in eastern PA whose property rights have been “taken” by the DRBC. The DRBC has prevented landowners in areas like Wayne and Pike counties from drilling for shale gas under their land for more than a decade.
In February 2020 MDN brought you news about a new half-billion-dollar petrochemical plant that will convert Marcellus Shale gas into feedstock (chemicals) to be used in agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and transportation, coming in Clinton County, PA (see 
Because of constant court challenges, the Trump administration just completed a redo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12), a general permit used in constructing pipelines. Antis believe the redo will make it easier for the incoming Biden administration to simply delete oil and gas pipelines from the permit. The cancel culture strikes again.
Well, the apocalypse has happened. We now have single party (Democrat) rule in Washington, D.C., and that spells trouble ahead for shale energy–for both oil AND gas. We’ll keep our opinions to ourselves on the politics. What’s done is done. Instead, we’ll let the analysts from S&P tell you what you can expect with new appointments at key federal agencies, and how energy policy under the Biden administration, with a big assist from a Democrat-controlled Senate, will likely play out in the coming years.
Walter “Wayne” Christian is a financial planner from Center, Texas, a Republican member of the Texas Railroad Commission (Chairman), having won the position in the November 8, 2016 general election. He’s an energy expert who thinks about and deals with energy, of all sorts, every single day. Christian recently penned an article exposing the attack now happening on American energy independence by the far left. He exposes the Paris Climate Accord for the fraud it is and he calls out “woke” investors who are pressuring other investors to divest from oil and gas companies. This is one article you need to read.