Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Now Runs Cove Point LNG!
In July, when Dominion Energy announced it had decided to exit the natural gas pipeline business by selling it to Warren Buffett and cancel the much-needed Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, the company said it would retain a 50% ownership in its Cove Point LNG export facility and sell a 25% interest to Buffett’s company (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B). Not mentioned in the original announcement was that Buffett’s company would take over the operation of the Cove Point facility…
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Southwestern Energy Company released its third-quarter 2020 update last Friday. The company previously announced it is buying out and merging in Marcellus/Utica driller Montage Resources. During the 3Q conference call, CEO Bill Way said the company expects to close on the deal immediately after Montage Resources shareholders vote on the deal November 12. Also from the 3Q update: Southwestern managed to reduce the cost of drilling for one of their PA Marcellus wells down to $491 per lateral foot!
In August Pennsylvania hiked its permit fee to drill a new shale well to be the most expensive of any state in the country, from $5,000 to $12,500 (see 
“It’s dangerous! It’s a killer! It will flow evil, nasty fracked gas! It’ll explode and kill everyone within a mile, and if it doesn’t explode, emissions from the plant will poison everyone around it anyway!” Those are the faux arguments used by radicals in Weymouth, Massachusetts to smear a compressor station built by Enbridge. All of those arguments have just magically disappeared. The price tag to make it happen? Enbridge will pay $10 million now, and $28 million later, for a grand total of $38 million.
The New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council (“Highlands Council”) is a regional planning agency that works in partnership with municipalities and counties in the Highlands Region to help them implement the state’s 2004 Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act (the Highlands Act). The Highlands Council has just given its blessing for a Tennesee Gas Pipeline (TGP) compressor station in Passaic County, NJ, near the border with Westchester, NY.
While Gulfport Energy (big Ohio Utica driller) hasn’t officially filed for bankruptcy, it’s certainly a possibility (see 
The bad blood between Energy Transfer (ET) and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues. ET’s Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary is desperately trying to complete the Mariner East 2X pipeline from eastern Ohio through to Marcus Hook near Philadelphia. A recent drilling mud spill in Marsh Creek State Park prompted the DEP to demand Sunoco change the route for ME2X (which was less than 60 days from being done) to a new route around the State Park (see 
It’s all starting to come undone for FirstEnergy Corporation. Last week two of Ohio’s three largest cities sued to block annual $150 million payments to FirstEnergy’s Energy Harbor subsidiary on the basis those payments are ill-gotten gain, the result of FirstEnergy bribing government officials to pass House Bill 6 (HB 6) and keep it passed (see 
Last week EQT Corporation announced a deal to buy Chevron’s considerable Marcellus/Utica assets (land and wells) for the lowball price of $735 million (see 
In July, now-former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates were indicted for felonies related to an alleged $60 million bribery scandal in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see 
The Enverus U.S. rig count rose by 1 to 348 over the past week, after having going up by 11 and 13 (respectively) the two weeks prior. However, the count in the Marcellus Shale dropped by three rigs in the wet gas area and the Marcellus dry gas region gained 1 rig, for a net loss of two.
When checking the NYMEX futures price for natural gas, which is based on the spot price at the Henry Hub in southern Louisiana, we had a surprise. Just a few days ago the NYMEX was showing right around $3 per million BTUs (or per Mcf, thousand cubic feet). Yesterday the price closed at $3.30/Mcf. Why the huge jump?
Rystad Energy says worldwide the oil and gas industry has lost some 400,000 jobs in 2020. About half of those, says Rystad, are jobs lost in the U.S. Reuters is quoting Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette as saying U.S. oil production will likely not return to its pre-pandemic peak of 13 million barrels of production per day–at least not any time soon. Ergo, those jobs are not coming back any time soon.