Enverus Rig Count @ 624 (+7); Marcellus @ 32 (+1), Utica @ 13 (+0)
The latest weekly Enverus U.S. rig count shows total rigs in use hitting a new post-pandemic high. For the week ending August 19, the rig count stood at 624, up 7 rigs from the previous week. That’s yet another new rig count high since April 2020. The Marcellus play regained a rig it lost from the previous week, while the Utica stayed even for a second week in a row. Collectively the M-U is currently running 45 rigs, up one rig from the previous week.
Read More “Enverus Rig Count @ 624 (+7); Marcellus @ 32 (+1), Utica @ 13 (+0)”
A new report (full copy below) commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has found the oil and natural gas industries directly or indirectly supported over 188,000 jobs in Pennsylvania in 2019, or 6.1% of the total share of commonwealth employment. Furthermore, the oil and gas industries produced $14.2 billion in labor income, which was 7.9% of the state total share, and had a statewide economic impact of $31.9 billion, for 9.7% of the state total share. The percentages for the impact of oil and gas on the West Virginia economy are similar.
The CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit established in 2015 for the purpose of educating thought leaders, policymakers, and the general public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy, has just published a detailed analysis of Pennsylvania’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (full copy below). In the report, more than 70 top scientists conclude that PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s justifications for the RGGI carbon tax “are invalid and its claims of environmental and economic benefits are fiction.”
Back in June, MDN brought you insights from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) which noticed the decreasing number of 
In June the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA) held its 74th Annual Winter Meeting in Columbus. Yeah, you read that right. The Winter Meeting was moved to June this year due to COVID. As with previous annual OOGA meetings, one of the speakers was Martin Shumway, technical director at Locus Bio-Energy Solutions. Shumway shared details from the latest DeBrosse Memorial Report (full copy below). What does the report show for 2020? Ohio oil and natural gas production both experienced steep declines last year. Oil production was down 16% from 2019, and natural gas production was down 10% from 2019. Even though the production news for 2020 is negative, this report is jam-packed with terrific, very useful information about Ohio’s shale industry.
Seneca Resources Company, the exploration and production subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), is the latest company to jump on the ESG (environmental, social, governance) bandwagon. Seneca is partnering with NexTier Oilfield Solutions, an oilfield services company that fracks and completes wells for companies like Seneca, to study the carbon emissions that come from fracking shale wells.
The Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), a trade association representing the companies and people that provide contractor services, equipment, materials, and labor to shale oil and gas exploration and production, infrastructure, transportation and processing, has just published its Spring/Summer 2021 Energy Logistics & Distribution Report (full copy below). The report features more than 75 individual charts and graphs tracking price and volume metrics for energy including crude oil, natural gas, NGLs, drilling activities, renewables, consumption, logistics, and financial data. It is the single best source of charts and graphs to understand what’s happening in the energy markets.
Is our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, being corrupted by the Biden White House? Maybe. The EIA published a post on their Today in Energy website yesterday to trumpet the fact that “nonfossil fuel sources” accounted for 21% of all energy consumed in the U.S. in 2020. The post should have had the headline that fossil energy provided 79% of all energy consumed in the U.S. last year. Yes, that was a new low for fossil energy (and a new high for nonfossil fuels) in the modern age, but not by much. We dug into the numbers and discovered a startling revelation: natural gas was the #1 source of energy consumed in the U.S. last year–even more than oil!
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2020 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the fifth year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. Don’t worry, we’ve turned it into a convenient PDF for MDN readers. What does the 2020 report show? While permits issued and the number of new wells drilled have both gone down (again), gas production has gone up (again)–to a new record high.