DNV Raises Long-Term Gas Forecast, Flips N. America to Growth
DNV, the Norway-based testing, certification, and risk management company, recently released its 10th annual Energy Transition Outlook (ETO). MDN has written about these outlooks before, and they usually read like a slow-motion obituary for fossil fuels. Not so much this year, at least for natural gas. DNV raised its long-term forecast for global gas demand, flipped its forecast for North American gas production from decline to growth, and says the U.S. and Canada are now the world’s biggest gas exporters, “the first time in the modern LNG era.” DNV still predicts gas will lose most of its role in power generation by mid-century, which we take issue with below. Read More “DNV Raises Long-Term Gas Forecast, Flips N. America to Growth”
On Monday, the Pennsylvania Democrat-controlled House took a tax bill the Senate sent over in June, gutted it, and sent back something very different. The new version has a 2-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fee on big electricity users (read: data centers), a grab bag of “clean energy” tax credits from Gov. Shapiro’s wish list, and a gas-fired power plant credit so wrapped in strings it may never pay out a dime. The House vote was 193-10. The Republican-controlled Senate had two voting days on the calendar before the Nov. 3 election: yesterday and today. The Republican-controlled Senate left the bill in its Rules Committee on Tuesday and instead passed 17 other measures. Today is its last scheduled day of voting before the Nov. 3 election. We don’t see any signs they will take up this bill today, but one never knows. 
Here’s a head-scratcher for you. On Tuesday, the price of natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) took a tumble, slipping below $3 for the first time in more than two weeks. Yet on that very same day, the “spot” (cash) price for gas right here in Appalachia went UP—and one trading point jumped more than 20% in a single day. How does that happen? And should drillers and royalty owners break out the champagne? Let’s unpack it. 
The folks who count frac crews for a living say U.S. fracking should bounce back by next spring. The biggest frac company in the country is more cautious: Halliburton says it’s planning for a flat 2027 in North America, and any frac recovery is “purely upside.” So who’s right? Maybe both. And tucked inside the numbers is some very good news for the Marcellus/Utica. 
Back on Sept. 1, we told you Dominion Energy’s monster 3,000-megawatt (3 gigawatt) gas-fired power plant in Cumberland County, Virginia, had cleared its first hurdle when the county planning commission voted 5-1 to recommend approval (see 
The Trump administration just put real money where its mouth is on the Constitution Pipeline. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will spend up to $42 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) money to nudge Williams’ long-dead, now-revived 125-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY closer to reality. The money won’t buy a single length of pipe—it pays for permitting and pre-construction work. And it doesn’t change the fact that New York and its Big Green allies are still fighting the project tooth and nail. But it sends a loud message: Washington now officially considers Constitution a national security asset. 
It’s official, or at least as official as these things get. America’s LNG export plants are drinking more natural gas than ever before. Two separate data trackers now say feedgas, the gas piped into LNG plants to be supercooled into a liquid and loaded onto ships, has set a new all-time high above 20 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). NGI clocked 20.7 Bcf/d on Monday, the third straight day above its prior record. RBN Energy says feedgas has topped 20 Bcf/d for the first time ever. The milestone comes almost exactly a decade after the first LNG cargo left Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in 2016. It also arrived just as a big chunk of Marcellus gas came back online after a leak on TC Energy’s Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline in West Virginia. 
A new study from the Boston-based Fiscal Alliance Foundation puts a price tag on what New England’s pipeline shortage costs Massachusetts families. The study, done by Always On Energy Research, finds that Enbridge’s proposed Project Beacon, a 300 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) expansion of the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline, would have saved Massachusetts ratepayers an average of $367 million per winter over the past seven winters. Even after paying their share of the pipeline’s cost, the average gas-heated household comes out ahead by $76 each winter, and small businesses by $622. 
Back on Sept. 2, we told you about Invenergy’s plan to build two big gas-fired power plants in Brillion, Wisconsin (see 
North Carolina’s Oil and Gas Commission is doing something it is required to do once every 10 years: review its entire rulebook for oil and gas drilling, including fracking. The Commission’s verdict so far is that every last rule is “necessary.” Case closed, right? Not if you’re an anti. Clean Water for North Carolina (CWFNC) is in full alarm mode, urging supporters to flood the Commission with “not one step back” comments before the November 9 deadline. Why the panic over rules that have never been used (not once) in 11 years? Follow the gas. A company wants to reopen an old vertical well in Lee County to power an AI data center. It would be the first commercial gas well in the state’s history. 
On Friday, we told you a leak on Columbia Gas Transmission’s Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline had pushed Appalachian gas down to $1.06 (see 
The feds have spoken: this winter in the Northeast will most likely be warmer than normal, and maybe a little soggier, too. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center released its official winter outlook last Thursday (Oct. 15), and a “super” El Niño is calling the shots. For those who make a living from Marcellus/Utica gas, a warm winter means less gas burned to heat homes, and that means softer prices. The market noticed. November futures slid 12 cents on Friday. But here’s the twist. In pipeline-starved New England, traders are still betting on $20-plus gas in January. A mild winter can’t fix what bad policy broke. 
The PJM Interconnection, the outfit that runs the power grid for 13 states plus Washington, D.C. (including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia), had a rough week last week. Unusually warm October weather, combined with a big chunk of power plants down for fall maintenance, pushed PJM into emergency mode on October 13 and 14. The lights stayed on. But PJM says weeks like this are becoming normal, because electricity demand from data centers is growing faster than new power plants and power lines are being built. PJM’s answer? More power plants. 
Last Thursday, in a unanimous 5-0 vote, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed something it has twice before refused to do: create a “blanket” authorization program for LNG plants. That’s regulatory-speak for letting LNG export terminals (and the smaller LNG “peak shaver” storage plants up here in the Northeast) make upgrades, swap out equipment, boost capacity, and even build new liquefaction trains, tanks, and marine berths without begging FERC for a separate, case-by-case order each time. Interstate pipelines have had a blanket program like this since 1982. LNG never did. FERC Chairman Laura Swett called it “historic,” and for once the word fits. The proposal is a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR), not a final rule, and the usual suspects are already lining up against it, including nine blue-state attorneys general. But if it goes through, more gas gets out the door faster, and that’s good news for the Marcellus/Utica.