NETL’s Brian Anderson Continues to Push Biden Anti-Fossil Fuel Plan
Brian Anderson is director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and now the head of the Biden administration’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, an effort to kill the use of fossil fuels (see NETL Flacks for Biden’s Kill Fossil Fuels Plan at M-U Event). We like Anderson and his role at NETL. We don’t like his new role of pimping for the Biden administration’s aim to end fossil fuels, which he did again in an interview with The Dominion Post.
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Although the price of natural gas has rocketed this year and cash flows for Marcellus/Utica drillers have ballooned, showering drillers with plenty of free cash flow, M-U drillers are spending less (19% less) on capital expenditures than they did in 2020. Production in the M-U is up slightly by 4% so far in 2021 vs. 2020. The experts at RBN Energy have dived into this latest twist in the shale story to help explain what’s going on and why.
Sometimes it seems like a full-time job running around and setting the record straight, correcting the outright lies and half-truths spun by the wacko environmental left. For example, shoveling up the messes made by the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), a far-left, hyper-partisan, nonprofit organization. Last month ORVI peddled falsehoods at a hearing convened by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management which is conducting a study on the prospects for a petrochemical industry in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
Here’s a paradox for you that we can’t explain. Last week we reported the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) predicts natural gas production in the U.S. will hit an all-time high in 2022 (see 
The latest weekly Enverus U.S. rig count shows total rigs regained some recently-lost ground to hit almost a new post-pandemic high. For the week ending September 2, the rig count stood at 623, up 2 rigs from the previous week. The Marcellus stayed even and the Utica lost 1 rig from the previous week. Collectively the M-U currently operates 44 rigs.
EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young Global Limited, is one of the Big Four accounting firms in the world. The company is also a powerhouse consulting firm. EY published a new study yesterday called “EY US oil and gas reserves, production and ESG benchmarking study” (full copy below). In the study EY tells us what we already knew: That 2020, due to the coronavirus, was a waste of a year in the oil and gas sector. It was bad–really bad. The EY study puts some numbers to just how bad, including the shocking number that capital expenditures (capex) totaled $60.3 billion, 60% lower than 2019. Of the 50 companies studied they collectively drilled 41% and 32% fewer development and exploration wells, respectively, compared with 2019.
Researchers at Penn State evaluated eight oil and gas wastewaters (i.e. brines), waste soybean oil, and commercial dust suppressants, comparing them to see how well they controlled particle pollution on simulated patches of road. If you believe the headlines about the study, you would believe wastewater is “not usually the best option” for treating dusty roads in PA. If you read the research study itself, you come to the conclusion the study draws no such conclusion.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released their latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for April through June 2021 (full copy below). It’s sort of a mixed bag with some good and some not-so-good. In 2Q21 the number of wells spud (begun to be drilled) was 120 new shale wells, up from the 113 spud in 2Q20, which was the point when the pandemic began to take hold in a big way. Sadly, gas production slipped in 2Q over the previous quarter, but not by much. It was still the second-highest quarterly production in the state for all time.