EIA DPR: NatGas Production in M-U Finally Reverses, Goes Up in July
Finally! This is a red-letter day. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report for June (with forecasted numbers for July) predicts natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica region will swing from month-over-month decreases we’ve seen for the past year and a half (beginning in January 2020) to a month-over-month increase. Hallelujah! The world is right again.
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The Enverus U.S. rig count is once again breaking one-year records. For the week ending June 9, the rig count stood at 560–the highest number it has seen since April 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to really take hold and shut everything down. The Marcellus play gained one rig over the past week, while the Utica lost a rig. Collectively the M-U is currently running 45 rigs.
For years those who have supported natural gas have made the argument that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have been decreasing in the U.S. because of the increased use of natural gas. How can that be, given burning natural gas causes the release of CO2? Because natural gas has captured market share and largely replaced the use of coal in electric power generation. As more natgas is used, CO2 emissions go down. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has just released numbers proving, without a doubt, just how much natgas has helped to lower CO2 emissions over the past 17 years.
Each month our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issues a Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) report. The STEO covers all of the major energy sources produced and consumed in the country. The latest edition, issued yesterday, finds the analysts at EIA revising up the expected marketed production and consumption of natural gas in 3Q21. Also up is the expected average price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub–now up to a predicted $3.07/MMBtu for all of 2021. However, EIA says natural gas consumption for all of 2021 will sink by half of one percent from 2020. Why?
Calling it “an extraordinary year for the global gas industry,” the International Gas Union (IGU) yesterday released its 12th annual World LNG Report–the world’s most comprehensive public source of information on key developments and trends in the LNG sector (full copy below). From huge drops in demand levels at the height of the pandemic lockdowns, through exceptional spikes when the winter deep freeze sent the world’s energy systems into crisis, the IGU says LNG, quite literally, delivered.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released their latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2021 (full copy below). The main indicators are moving in the right direction. In 1Q21 the number of new wells spud (begun to be drilled) was 133 new shale wells. That’s less than the 153 spud wells in 1Q20, which happened prior to the pandemic, but more than the spud numbers for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2020. Even with less new drilling over the past few years, production numbers continued to soar, hitting a brand new, all-time high of 1.863 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) during 1Q21.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is in somebody’s back pocket–like Saudi Arabia, or maybe some of the other OPEC members. How do we know? The IEA has just published a nonsensical “report” called “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector” (full copy below). In the report, IEA makes the preposterous claim that if the world (i.e. the U.S.) doesn’t stop all new drilling for oil and gas right now, today, the earth will toast itself into oblivion by 2050. As we so often say, follow the money.
Powerhouse consulting firm Deloitte has just published a series of studies addressing the question of whether oil and gas (and chemicals) companies should optimize and capture the remaining value from hydrocarbons (keep drilling for oil and gas), or should they “embrace the broader energy scope” and begin investing in so-called green energy? Deloitte says, “There is no easy answer to this conundrum.”
Did you know that Mom Earth is polluting…herself? Did you know that Mom Earth is responsible for her own global warming? Yeah. You see, a full 25% of all so-called fugitive methane emissions (methane that goes unfiltered up into the atmosphere) come from swamps. Or what you may call “wetlands.” And there isn’t a darned thing we mankind can do about it because, well, they’re wetlands and pristine and if you drain them, that’s an environmental crime against Mom Earth. Yet swamps are causing a big, fat global warming issue. What’s an environmentalist wacko to do?
Back in 2018 MDN analyzed the economic impact from just one driller (Cabot Oil & Gas) in one county (Susquehanna County, PA) and discovered Cabot had put $1.5 billion into the pockets of private landowners through signing bonuses and royalties, and had spent another $3.5 billion on drilling (over $5 billion total spent) over a 10-year period–all in Susquehanna County (see 
We are sick and tired of the Chicken Little scaremongering that comes from so-called “independent consultants” and the reports they issue for states like Pennsylvania claiming (falsely) that average temperatures in the state are set to rise by 6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. It is a demonstrably false claim. Yet that’s what is now being reported as fact.