New Study Claims 14% of PA O&G Wells Drilled Before 2018 May Leak
A new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (full copy below) will no doubt be used by anti-fossil fuel zealots to try and substantiate a lie they’ve been spreading for decades, claiming that shale wells leak–both fluids and gas. The study, unfortunately, has the veneer of respectability because one of the authors is connected to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh. The main researcher/author hails from Johns Hopkins University, a well-known, fossil fuel-hating organization. We will tell you why this latest attempt to smear shale comes up short.
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The Enverus U.S. rig count continues to climb, dramatically. For the week ending April 14, the U.S. rig count climbed another 13 active rigs to 541. The Marcellus added a rig ending the week with 32 active rigs. The Ohio Utica stayed even with 13 active rigs. The M-U combined has 45 active rigs. The other major shale gas play, the Haynesville, lost one rig and now has 47 active rigs.
Natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica continues to slowly turn around. The rate of decline in production is slowing and (at some point) will reverse and begin to show increases month over month. That was our takeaway from yesterday’s Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), a report issued each month by our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Two shale plays–the Haynesville in Louisiana and East Texas, and the Permian in West Texas and eastern New Mexico–will see natural gas production increase in the coming month of May, same as happened in April. That’s two months in a row both the Haynesville and Permian increased natural gas production.
Cheniere Energy, the biggest LNG exporter operating in the U.S., published a “Climate Scenario Analysis Report” last week (full copy below). The report analyzes the long-term resilience of Cheniere’s business and the potential implications for LNG supply and demand in various future climate scenarios through 2040. Cheniere predicts LNG demand and exports to continue growing through 2040, but after that, LNG will decline due to continued global action to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
We sometimes wonder if politicians understand how STUPID they sometimes sound (
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) most recent monthly short-term energy outlook (STEO) contains some disheartening numbers regarding natural gas production and consumption. EIA, with some of the best number crunchers in the business, predicts natural gas production will hit 91.41 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2021 and 93.29 Bcf/d in 2022. The current all-time high was 93.06 Bcf/d, hit in 2019 prior to the pandemic. That’s the good news. The bad news is that consumption (i.e. demand) is forecast to decrease even further this year and next year.
Each quarter the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issues an update on Utica (and Marcellus) oil and natural gas production. ODNR no longer issues a summary press release as they once did, which means the quarterly updates kind of fell off our radar. An astute MDN subscriber emailed to ask about the 4Q numbers for Ohio. We checked and discovered we had only reported on 2Q numbers for all of 2020! Today we correct that oversight. ODNR publishes a detailed spreadsheet of all active wells showing oil and gas production by well. We make a copy of that spreadsheet, enhance it to make it more usable, and link to it–for each quarter in 2020. We also do our own sorting to show you the top 25 shale gas wells and top 25 shale oil wells for each quarter in 2020.
The expert number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), now have the lowdown on how the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting partial shutdown of the American economy affected energy use in 2020. Our country saw the largest one-year decline in energy usage–ever. Last year’s energy usage dipped 7% from the previous year. The biggest loser was the transportation sector which decreased energy usage by 15%. Even the residential sector with people staying home saw a slight decrease of 1% last year.
