EIA Natural Gas Oct 2016 Monthly Report
This past Monday, Oct. 31, our favorite government agency (the U.S. Energy Information Administration) issued their Natural Gas Monthly report. The report covers data received up through August 2016. Even though the data is a couple of months old, it is instructive (and interesting). EIA says the month report, “highlights activities, events, and analyses of interest to public and private sector organizations associated with the natural gas industry. Volume and price data are presented each month for natural gas production, distribution, consumption, and interstate pipeline activities. Producer?related activities and underground storage data are also reported.” We found the report interesting as we scanned through it and thought you would too…
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As we near the end of this year, analysts and consultants inevitably turn their attention to next year, 2017. Will oil and gas drillers spend more money next year on their drilling programs? The consensus appears to be a resounding “Yes!” The question is, how much more? Anyone’s guess. But analysts like to guess. One those analyst firms is Evercore ISI, an investment banking advisory firm founded in 1995. Evercore’s smarties are predicting drillers will spend 25% more next year than they did this year on drilling–with a total collective spend across the industry of ~$110 billion. Here’s their thinking…
MDN editor Jim Willis recently had the pleasure of addressing the Petroleum Club at the University of Pittsburgh’s Bradford, PA campus. Not in person, but via Skype video. When Jim asked the group, most of them in their second year of a two-year petroleum technology program about future job prospects, he got the impression they are concerned. The Marcellus industry has not been immune to layoffs. Graduating with a degree in an industry that’s seen 300,000+ layoffs over the past two years might make some question the wisdom of entering the program in the first place. Jim’s message to these eager young people bursting with potential? Don’t give up–and be encouraged. At the recent Shale Insight event and Benposium East event (both held in September), Jim had a number of conversations with those who either work in or invest in the o&g industry. His conclusion after speaking with industry insiders? Things are beginning to turn around. In fact, we can’t count the number of stories that talk about the coming shortage of good workers in the o&g industry. Today we spotted a press release from Energent Group promoting new research and wanted to highlight some of the information in that release–information that may be helpful to our new young friends at Pitt-Bradford, and for others in the industry looking for work. The research highlights the fact there are many drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs), in all shale plays–but particularly in the oily Permian and Eagle Ford shale plays. According to the Energent research, workers probably stand the best chance of getting a job with a frac crew–because companies will first work on completing the already-drilled wells by fracking them. Makes sense to us!…
Black & Veatch, a global engineering, consulting, construction, and operations company that is a major player in the oil and gas market, has just-released a new report: 2016 Strategic Directions: Natural Gas Industry Report (see a copy below). The new report tackles market outlooks for the upstream, midstream and downstream segments. One of the sections that caught our eye: power market opportunities, which explores how coal plant retirements and lower operating dispatch costs have moved natural gas to its place as the primary energy source in the United States. Also in the report, the attitudes of those working in the industry is optimistic. But the report authors issue a note of caution: “Yet, this optimism may be masking some substantial warning signs, particularly for upstream and midstream players. Tight controls on capital investments, tied to the low margins inherent in today’s pricing environment, have constrained new projects. Lower crude oil prices have revitalized petrochemical projects in the downstream sector, particularly in international markets, but investors still question long-term viability. This raises a key question for how organizations are, or are not, positioned to take advantage of an eventual pricing correction.” In other words, drillers and pipeline companies shouldn’t be popping the cork on the champagne bottle just yet. Here’s the fifth annual natgas update from B&V…
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently launched a “What If…?” series to counter the radical “keep it in the ground” movement–a movement that irrationally hates the use of fossil fuels. In August the Chamber released their first such report, titled “What If…Energy Production was Banned on Federal Lands and Waters?” (see 
For years now the radical Park Park Foundation has been buying its research from a few select professors at a few select universities. One of the scientists for sale is Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment (see 
Anti-fossil fuel zealots have long attempted to scare the masses with false claims about fracked shale gas in the Marcellus. Early on radical environmental organizations tried to scare people in New York City, telling them they’ll get lung cancer from radon in Marcellus gas if they use it (see 
You just can’t get away from the Marcellus/Utica–even at a conference supposedly focused on the Western U.S. Natural gas infrastructure was a key topic at the recent LDC Gas Forum Rockies & West conference held in Denver, CO. ICF International vice president Kevin Petak was one of the speakers. He dropped what is (to us) a bombshell when he said he believes the Marcellus and Utica combined will pump out 40 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by 2025–just 10 short years from now. The two plays combined today are pumping around 21 Bcf/d–so Petak is predicting our output will double! If that’s so, there will need to be a whole lotta drillin’ goin’ on between now and then. In addition to Petak, Crystal Heter, vice president for commercial operations at the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline, had some VERY interesting things to say about the REX pipeline reversal which sends Marcellus/Utica gas to the Midwest. It looks like even more gas is about to go from our area westward…
Yesterday MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report–the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. In September, the EIA added a new tab of information for Drilled but UnCompleted wells (DUCs), which showed the number of DUCs dwindling (see 
Question: How can your business take advantage of the development of a petrochemical industry in your backyard? That was the question and premise behind a new white paper/report from the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center. The white paper, titled “Shell Petrochemical Complex (“Cracker”) Project Overview – The First Step in Establishing a Regional Petrochemical Sector” (full copy below) provides an excellent overview of the coming ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA–with details for how and who can benefit from it. The paper is mainly aimed at manufacturers that will be able to leverage the output from the plant–but there’s plenty of other great information in this paper to inspire and get your creative business juices flowing. Take time to download and read it. The future of your business may depend on it!…
Over the past six months or so MDN has repeatedly read about drillers in the Marcellus/Utica drilling longer laterals (the horizontal part of the well) and using way more sand to keep the cracks propped open longer. And between longer laterals and more sand, drillers in the northeast are getting higher output from their wells. So it was with some interest (and skepticism) that we read about new research that says longer laterals don’t lead to greater production totals. The research is from a respected source: Bernstein Research. However, the data used was only from the Barnett Shale–so it’s not clear to us how relevant the findings are for northeast drillers. Here’s what the research says…
We hate to say “I told you so,” but we’ll say it anyway. If you live in New England, prepare yourself. You’re about to experience more price shocks for natural gas and electricity (4x more than the rest of the country, or higher). Why? Because you’re blocking new pipeline projects that would bring cheap, abundant, clean-burning natural gas to the region. The Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale sits a few hundred miles away–yet very little Marcellus gas is flowing to New England at this point. New England, more than any other region in the country, relies on natgas to power electric generating plants. Without extra supplies, especially in the winter months when natgas gets used for heating, electric generators are forced to pay obscenely high rates to stay in operation. Those obscenely high rates get passed along to ratepayers–businesses AND residences. Yet anti-fossil fuel wackos continue to try and stop new pipelines, sometimes criminally (see 
Last Friday MDN reported that none other than the man-made global warmists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a research report admitting that cows and rice farms are the real cause of an increase in global methane emissions–NOT shale drilling (see 
Kinder Morgan’s UTOPIA (Utica To Ontario Pipeline Access) pipeline is a 12-inch ethane pipeline that will run ~240 miles and will only be built in Ohio–therefore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won’t be involved in permitting the project. In September we noted that Kinder Morgan is still facing opposition from some Ohio landowners (see