National Rig Count Slides: U.S. Drops 1 @ 584, M-U Static @ 36
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count lost ground again last week for the fifth time in six weeks, albeit by a small amount. The national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count lost one rig and now stands at 584 active rigs. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the sixth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs. The M-U’s primary competitor, the Haynesville, held stead with 37 active rigs.
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Operators and investors are more concerned than ever about the remaining inventory of drillable locations. Who has it? Where is it? Will it be economic? The North American inventory rankings by shale play are always of interest. Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, recently issued a report that ranks the plays by the number of economic-to-drill locations each play has left. Unfortunately, Marcellus Shale play is on the list of “losers” in this latest report. Why? A huge jump in Bidenflation — rig day rates were up 25% year-over-year in September in the Marcellus, compared to about 15% across the other plays. Also a factor is dropping productivity in the Marcellus (“productivity degradation”), particularly in northeast PA.
The liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade increased 3.1% globally in 2023 to an average of 52.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), an increase of 1.6 Bcf/d from 2022, according to a recently released report from the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers (GIIGNL). Expanded export and import capacity and increasing natural gas demand drove the growth in the global LNG trade last year.
No, we’re not talking about transitioning from male to female and female to male, a mental disorder that’s celebrated in popular culture these days. We’re talking about the “other” transitioning — from using fossil fuels to…using nothing, because without fossil fuels, you get nothing when it comes to energy. The left pretends solar and wind energy can power the world, and it’s coming any day now. Except, as we pointed out yesterday, 81.5% of all energy used throughout the world in 2023 came from fossil fuels (see 
For donkey’s years, BP (British Petroleum) published its annual Statistical Review of World Energy — since 1952. Last year BP said it would no longer publish it and instead turn it over to a Big Green advocacy group known as The Energy Institute (EI) to publish (see 
Not even the Bidenistas who have taken over at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) can cover up and hide the fact that the United States runs on fossil energy. An EIA post from last week chronicling the changes in energy use and sources since 1776 reveals that in 2023, some 82.5% of all energy used in our country came from oil, natural gas, and coal (fossil fuels), while just 2.3% came from so-called renewables solar and wind. Yet mainstream media keeps feeding the population the false narrative that solar and wind are taking over and about to replace fossil energy as our primary fuel source. IT’S A LIE!
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count has been in a pattern of free-falling for the past month. Last week, the national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count dropped by another seven to 581, the lowest since December 2021. It’s gone from free-falling to a bloodbath. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the fourth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs.
Pennsylvania’s Democrat Party is hellbent on driving the Marcellus Shale industry out of the state. They have been for years. That’s just a truthful observation and beyond dispute. One year ago, the Dems in the PA House passed a resolution by a single vote that directs the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) to “study” Pennsylvania’s revenue from the oil and gas industry, comparing it with the top five states for natural gas production in the U.S. (see 
On Wednesday, the International Gas Union (IGU) released its 15th annual 2024 World LNG Report, the world’s most comprehensive public source of information on key developments and trends in the LNG sector (full copy below). According to the report, the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market has a newfound but fragile equilibrium. The global LNG trade reached a record level of 401.42 million metric tons in 2023, growing by 2.1% or 8.4 million tons from the previous year. However, the pace of growth decreased last year over the previous year. Why? Not enough LNG supply to meet worldwide demand.
MDN told you the bottom had dropped out of the rig count two weeks ago (see 
Natural gas development in the Marcellus/Utica continues to get cleaner year after year. Updated data shows our region’s natgas producers reduced methane intensity by nearly 17% in a single year. That’s according to a report co-authored by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), an anti-fossil fuel organization. The CATF and Ceres (an anti-capitalist organization) recently released its fourth annual 2024 Benchmarking Methane and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions report.