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Marcellus/Utica NatGas Production Drops 1.5 Bcf/d Jan to May
Enverus (formerly known as Drillinginfo) recently released its latest FundamentalEdge report that explores the ongoing supply response to demand destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the report, Enverus estimates how much dry gas production each major shale play produced, month by month, from January through May of this year. The numbers show that production from the Marcellus/Utica, which produces the most natural gas of any play, decreased the most of any play–by some 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) from January to May.
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An economist from Binghamton University who has zero training in health care and the medical field is the lead author of a new study that claims air pollution from Marcellus fracking killed an estimated 20 people in Pennsylvania from 2010-2017. While the “study” aims to paint Marcellus fracking as a killer, we say it makes the opposite point. This study (if you believe its results) proves Marcellus fracking is about the safest form of energy on earth!
MDN recently told you that EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the country, has shut-in roughly one-third of its regular natural gas production through the end of June (see 
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the “lifeblood” of the global energy system is…investment. That is, money. Without investment, new sources of energy don’t appear. In 2016 IEA began to publish an annual report called World Energy Investment, in order to track spending on all forms of energy worldwide. Earlier this week IEA published its fifth annual version of the report. In the report, IEA says 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic, will mark the largest-ever collapse in global energy investment in history. IEA says the coming investment decline will impact oil the most.
It had to happen sooner or later. Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2020 (full copy below). It shows natgas production in PA rose 6.8% compared to the same period last year. However, overall production fell compared to 4Q19’s record high, breaking a streak that went back 3.5 years.
Baker Hughes, one of the largest oilfield services (drilling) companies in the U.S. and the world, began keeping records on rig counts starting in 1987. As of May 12, 2020, producers operated 339 rigs in the U.S. That’s the lowest number of operating rigs since Baker Hughes began publishing its venerated rig count. It’s not the kind of record we like to see broken.
We’ve been eagerly anticipating this month’s edition of our favorite report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), to see how much gas production in the Marcellus/Utica will decrease. The DPR estimates how much oil and natural gas each of the country’s seven largest shale plays produced in the previous (current) month, and how much each will produce in the coming (next) month.
Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo) is a leading data, software and insights company that provides information to upstream, midstream, and downstream companies. Enverus experts have just published an “Oil and Gas Fundamentals Update” featuring the impacts of COVID-19. VP of Strategic Analytics for Enverus, Bernadette Johnson, says “there will still be more painful announcements, but we are seeing the bottom” of the current oil and gas price crash. It will be painful and slow, but we now begin to crawl back up out of the hole we are in.
Everyone is still trying to get their heads around what has and is happening to the economies and energy markets around the world, suffering huge blows from being shut down due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Everyone has their own models and predictions. The latest is the International Energy Agency which has just published its World Energy Review–an analysis of how the virus pandemic is likely to affect world energy markets based on what has happened over the past 100 days.
A partnership between Penn State EMS Energy Institute researchers and a Pittsburgh-based start-up company may hold the answer to reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions while also paving the way to disrupt the chemical and material industries. The collaboration has resulted in several research projects that aim to “reinvent” both coal and natural gas as clean, cost-effective sources of fuels and high-performance materials.
Simon-Kucher & Partners, a global strategy and marketing consulting firm along with Rice University surveyed 195 oil and gas industry experts from around the world. They published their findings in a report titled “2020 Oil & Gas Crisis Study.” The upshot, the sentiment, is that the current crisis faced by oil companies is largely homegrown. We did it to ourselves.
The number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), have analyzed recent additions to the national electric grid–the new power generating plants that have been added. As you know, electricity can be generated by coal, natural gas, water (hydro), nuclear and yes, so-called renewables. At first blush, the report issued by EIA yesterday looks to be a win for renewables. In 2019 onshore wind added 9,100 megawatts of new electricity and solar added 5,300 MW of new electricity (combined total of 14,400). In 2019 natural gas added 8,300 MW of new electricity to the grid. Yet when you look at the bigger picture, how much electricity is generated by any given single source, natgas produces far more electricity than any other source.
Some exciting news is chronicled in a recent post by our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Last year, in 2019, the United States exported more energy (oil, natural gas, coal, and petroleum products) than it imported. That’s the first time we’ve exported more than imported in 67 years!
In late March we told you about the biggest one-week drop in U.S. rig counts in the past four years when the rig count dropped by 47 in a single week (see