Baker Hughes | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Research | West Virginia
Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Gained 3 Rigs, M-U Keeps a Combined 37
We continue to eek out progress with the rig report. Last week, the national rig count added three rigs after adding two the prior week and one three weeks ago. We’ve added rigs for three weeks in a row! We ended last week with 542 active rigs across the country. The Utica Shale in Ohio added one rig two weeks ago and kept it last week. The combined count was 37 for two weeks running. PA operated 18 active rigs last week. OH operated 12 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 13 rigs targeted the Utica last week. Read More “Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Gained 3 Rigs, M-U Keeps a Combined 37”
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the September 20 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC approved and/or renewed 40 general water use permits in August for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Centre, Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. 
EQT Corporation CEO Toby Rice, along with two other speakers (one from Enbridge and one from investment firm Engine No. 1) spoke on a panel at last week’s Bloomberg event called “Barrel of Tomorrow in the Age of AI” held in Houston. Rice and the others had some interesting comments about the current high price of electric and heating bills in the U.S. and how to decrease them. Their recommended solution to lower energy costs for U.S. residents is to build more natural gas pipelines. Rice also provided insight into the breakeven price that “marginal” producers need to break even and generate returns. 
For years, Big Oil companies based in other countries have been in love with LNG trading, including BP (UK), Shell (UK), Total (France), and Eni (Italy). In fact, in February 2016, Shell completed a $69.7 billion buyout and merger with BG, the largest such oil and gas deal since Exxon bought Mobil in 1999, because of LNG (see 
In April, MDN told you of a proposal by Fundamental Data for the “Ridgeline Facility,” a large natural gas power plant and data center that will be built between Davis and Thomas, WV (see 
MDN has highlighted Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California company that manufactures small electric-generating plants that run on natural gas, several times in the past (
In April 2023, MDN told you about the Adams Fork Energy project, a multi-billion-dollar clean ammonia production facility planned for Mingo County, WV (see 
Recently, two neighboring towns in Greene County, PA, declared a Disaster Emergency related to a “frac-out” at the EQT Lumber well that happened three years ago, in July 2022 (see 
The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) is meeting today and will vote on whether to approve National Grid’s natural gas plan, which includes using more natural gas from the Williams Transco pipeline. More gas would be delivered to National Grid via the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project that will add a new 23-mile pipeline from the shore of New Jersey into (on the bottom of) the Raritan Bay, running parallel to the existing Transco pipeline before connecting to the Transco pipeline offshore from Long Island. The odious National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) convened a Zoom call featuring dingbat actor Mark Ruffalo to trash-talk the project ahead of the vote. 
Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in electric fracking (“e-fracking”) — using natural gas from the well pad instead of diesel fuel to power turbines that create electricity to drive fracking pumps. It’s a much quieter, less-polluting version of fracking. EQT Corporation, the country’s second-largest natural gas producer, uses Evolution Well Services for much (all?) of its drilling. Evolution and EQT issued an announcement yesterday about a series of record-breaking achievements they’ve made in the Marcellus/Utica.