PA Natural Gas Production Hits Another All-Time High in 3Q18
Yesterday the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released their latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for Jul-Sep 2018 (full copy below). It shows natgas production rose an amazing 18.5% compared to the same period last year. The report also shows the number of producing wells is up 10.4% from last year. Total natural gas production volume was 1,567.5 billion cubic feet (Bcf), and the number of producing wells in 3Q18 was 8,917 (of which 8,431 were shale wells). The biggest news is that once again 3Q18 saw the highest quarterly production of natural gas in the state–ever. This is the eighth quarter in a row there has been an increase in production. Two-thirds of the state’s natural gas production consistently comes from four counties: Susquehanna, Washington, Greene and Bradford.
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Every three years the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is required, by state law, to produce an update to the state’s so-called Climate Action Plan. The fact that they have such a plan boggles the mind–a plan to address global warming (the operative word being “global”) from one state. To be fair, a number of states and even large cities also have such plans. These plans are all arrogant nonsense. No entity, especially not a single state, can do a darned thing to affect the temperature of Mom Earth, but they pretend they can. And they use the existence of such plans as a manipulative political tool to force policy changes that inflict great economic harm on their citizens–all in the name of saving the planet. They’ve brainwashed our children into believing we’ll die if we don’t give up fossil fuel use. The DEP recently released their triennial update, and it’s as crazy as ever.
Well this wasn’t supposed to happen. The Delaware County (PA) Council hired a company in July of this year at a cost of $115,000 to conduct an independent risk assessment study of both the Mariner East 2 (ME2) and Adelphia Gateway pipeline projects (both running through Delaware County), to assess just how much risk each pipeline poses to residents in the county, a heavily populated Philadelphia suburb. A group of antis paid $50,000 to Quest Consultants for the same thing. The antis released their “report” in October (see 
Each year (for the 12th year running) the Canadian-based Fraser Institute surveys petroleum industry executives and managers (256 of them for 2018) asking them their opinions on the barriers to investing in exploration and production in various geographies across the globe. That is, what makes them more likely or less likely to spend money drilling in a particular location? The Global Petroleum Survey (full copy below), tallies the survey responses and ranks each geography from most desirable place to invest, to least desirable. Last year West Virginia was ranked as the fifth most desirable place to invest (see 
Pennsylvania has had a seriously bad problem with acid mine drainage for years–water that washes through old/abandoned coal mines that comes back out heavily laden with minerals that make it acidic and a danger to the environment. More recently, with the shale revolution, PA has also found itself with an abundance of shale wastewater–most of it “produced” water that comes from deep in the earth (not surface drinking water), also laden with all sorts of minerals. Both acid mine water and shale wastewater are not easy to treat. Some sharp kids and their professors at the University of Pittsburgh got the bright idea to combine the two together, and treat them together, at the same time. Why? Because they have opposite amounts of barium and sulfates. Combine the two and you can more easily remove the nasty stuff via “precipitation.” How cool is that?
Does the oil and gas industry in New York State even matter anymore? Well, yes, it does! It employs a number of people and produces oil and gas to feed our economy. Although Andrew Cuomo has single-handedly sentenced upstate residents to generational poverty by denying them the opportunity to allow shale drilling, there is a rich history of conventional drilling for oil and gas in the state. But now, even the conventional industry is under assault and attack by Cuomo and his lackeys at the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). How? The DEC has unveiled what IOGA of NY calls “devastating proposed air regulations”–regulations that will shut down many o&g operators in the Empire State. IOGA calls it a “regulatory assault.” We call New York State the Empire Crumbling State.
The annual Black & Veatch “Strategic Directions: Natural Gas Report” (full copy below) explores the complexities and market dynamics impacting today’s natural gas landscape. As the world continues to invest in the adoption of so-called renewable energy options, the outlook for natural gas has never been more positive. You read that right! More renewables = more investment in natural gas. Shifts in the global energy market are influencing gas production and transportation, altering the volume of supply. Developers, who know a good opportunity when they see it, are investing heavily in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefaction capacity. But more infrastructure and pipeline capacity will be needed to continue to support the growth in LNG, especially as Asian markets continue to migrate away from coal in an effort to meet environmental goals. This report explores how complex geopolitics will impact upstream, midstream and downstream operations, while global forces reshape the industry across the board.
Residents of Virginia have benefited in a major way from an abundance of cheap, clean-burning shale gas. How much benefit? Try $11 billion of money went directly into the pockets of Virginia residents and businesses over the past 10 years thanks to low-priced natural gas–fracked gas, coming from the Marcellus/Utica. Industry group Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) has just published a new report that shares the good news (full copy below). You may recall not long ago CEA published a similar study for Pennsylvania (see 
We’re speechless–and that doesn’t happen often. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) monthly “Drilling Productivity Report” (DPR) said that in October the country’s seven major shale plays would produce an amazing, all-time high of 73 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas production (see 
Each year the International Energy Agency (IEA) issues a special 
Trout Unlimited (TU), previously outed as an anti-fracking organization (see 
Eni, an Italian oil and gas company (11th largest in the world), recently issued Volume 2 of its annual Global Energy Outlook. It’s titled “World Gas and Renewables Review” (full copy below) and it’s full of interesting statistics about natural gas and the U.S.’s role in producing it. For example, when it comes to estimated reserves–how much natural gas is in the ground that we might conceivably be able to extract–Russia, Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan (!) all have more natural gas reserves than the U.S. We’re #5 down the list, after Turkmenistan. And yet, when it comes to production, the U.S. is #1. The difference is, of course, fracking.