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DUG Appalachia: “Forgotten” Ohio has “Holy Trinity” – Oil, Gas, NGLs

Yesterday and today, Hart Energy is hosting the DUG Appalachia Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh. DUG stands for Developing Unconventional Gas. Great conference and a great company hosting it. The opening session yesterday was titled, “The State of the Utica: The Code’s Cracked,” and featured Rob Brundrett, President of the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA). Brundrett had some interesting comments about the often-overlooked Ohio Utica Shale. He said Ohio is sometimes “the forgotten child” in the Marcellus/Utica region and that the Ohio Utica offers the “holy trinity of hydrocarbons” — crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). His turn-of-phrase gave us a chuckle.
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Get Up to Speed on ARCH2 at Appalachian Hydrogen & CCS Conference

As you know, the Bidenistas recently announced seven winners of the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games contest (see Hydrogen Hub Winners Announced – WV Takes Prize in M-U Region). The West Virginia-led Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), a project that will use Marcellus/Utica natural gas as the feedstock to produce “blue” hydrogen, was one of the seven winners (scoring $925 million). Cool! If you want to know more about what’s coming with ARCH2 and in the hydrogen (and carbon capture) space in general, there’s one place to be on November 30: The Appalachian Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Conference V, being held at the Hilton Garden Inn Southpointe/Pittsburgh.
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Other Shale Plays Grow Gas Production to Make Up for Stalled M-U

We’ve called attention to this for years now: The Marcellus/Utica, THE largest producing play in the U.S., is now stalled with respect to increasing production of natural gas. Why? Because we can’t build and complete any major new pipelines. Without more pipelines, the M-U is limited in how much it can produce. The situation is widely known. Yet another fact is evident: The U.S. continues to increase natural gas production. How? Other “non-core” plays (plays that don’t focus on gas) are seeing an increase in gas production from “private players,” according to a speaker at this week’s LDC Forum Northeast in Boston.
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SUPER DUG Event – Biden Intent on Destroying O&G; NatGas on Hold

First, there was DUG, the Developing Unconventional Gas industry conference founded and hosted by Hart Energy. Then there were regional editions of DUG, like DUG Permian, DUG Eagle Ford, DUG Bakken, and DUG East (which covered both the Marcellus and Utica). Now, there’s SUPER DUG! Which is the combination of events covering the Permian, Eagle Ford, Midcontinent (SCOOP/STACK), Bakken, and the Rockies (DJ Basin, etc.). SUPER DUG was held yesterday and today in Fort Worth, Texas. There was some interesting news coming from the first day–news about natural gas and about Joe Biden.
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POGLA Event May 6: Landowners, Industry & The Legislature

One of MDN’s favorite organizations is the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Landowner Alliance (POGLA), an organization representing oil, gas, mineral, and royalty owners throughout the Commonwealth of PA. POGLA will host a conference titled Landowners, Industry & The Legislature, on May 6, 2023, from 8 am to 5 pm in Washington, PA. This event has the MDN stamp of approval. If you are a landowner or rights owner in PA, and if there’s any way you can attend this low-cost event near Pittsburgh, we heartily encourage you to do so.
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CERAWeek: Bidenistas’ Secret Meeting on Taking Over Gas Certs

As we have been reporting, CERAWeek, the world’s premier energy conference, is happening all this week in Houston, Texas. On Thursday, Bloomberg reporters filed a roundup/overview of happenings at the event. Below is the roundup from Day Four of CERAWeek, which includes reporting on a secretive meeting hosted by Biden administration officials who are working on a plan to take over standards for what constitutes and what does not constitute “responsible” gas. Also in the list is a summary of comments (very disappointing comments) made by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Chairman Willie Phillips about racist (i.e., “environmental justice”) oil and gas projects.
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CERAWeek: Why RNG is a Bit Player in Natural Gas Space

RNG (renewable natural gas) was a hot topic at yesterday’s CERAWeek event in Houston, Texas. We don’t write much about RNG because, quite frankly, it doesn’t interest us. We’d rather punch holes in the ground to get natural gas than cap a manure pile to collect it. The reason we’re writing about it today is that a Reuters reporter covering CERAWeek has written an article about comments made at the event. The comments are illuminating and you need to read what is being said about RNG by those in the know.
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BKV IPO On Hold, M&A Deals Falling Apart Due to Low Gas Prices

CERAWeek, happening this week in Houston, Texas, is one of (perhaps THE) premier oil and gas conferences held each year. Everybody who’s anybody attends, except for yours truly. Sometimes it’s the things you (over)hear around the proverbial water cooler at such events that are more interesting than what is said from the stage or in media interviews. For example, Banpu’s BKV, with major assets in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last year to launch an initial public offering (see Northeast PA Marcellus Driller BKV/Banpu Files with SEC for IPO). According to whispers Reuters heard at CERAWeek, the current low commodity price of natgas has put BKV’s IPO plans on hold.
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CERAWeek: Granholm Woos O&G; Europe Won’t Sign LNG Deals

As we have been reporting, CERAWeek, the world’s premier energy conference, is happening all this week in Houston, Texas. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reporters filed a roundup/overview of happenings at the event. Below is the roundup from Day Three of CERAWeek, which includes comments made by the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, attempting to suck up to the same oil and gas companies she has been bashing for the past two years. Also of interest, Europeans said during a panel discussion that European countries are reluctant to sign long-term LNG contracts because they believe (wrongly) that natgas will soon become “obsolete.” What dunderheads. No wonder Europe is crumbling and falling before our eyes.
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CERAWeek: Repsol Investing $1.5B; Souki Won’t Sell LNG to China

As we have been reporting, CERAWeek, the world’s premier energy conference, is happening all this week in Houston, Texas. MDN is not there, but there are a number of news organizations on site. One of them is Bloomberg. Yes, we know, Bloomberg tilts left. But sometimes they send reporters out who actually do real reporting, as is happening from CERAWeek. On Monday, Bloomberg filed a roundup/overview of things said at the event–both in sessions and in interviews with Bloomberg reporters. Below is the roundup from Day One of CERAWeek, which includes an interesting summary of Repsol comments that the company is investing close to $1.5 billion in 2023 in exploration and production in North America. Repsol has major operations in the Marcellus–so we can expect an expanded drilling program in Repsol’s northeastern PA assets.
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CERAWeek: EQT Says NatGas Balanced 2023; Cheniere Wants More M-U Gas

As we have been reporting, CERAWeek, the world’s premier energy conference, is happening all this week in Houston, Texas. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reporters filed a roundup/overview of happenings at the event. Below is the roundup from Day Two of CERAWeek, which includes a comment by EQT CEO Toby Rice, who said he believes the natural gas market will come back into balance in the “middle half” of this year as production adjusts (i.e., less drilling) following the recent precipitous collapse in prices.
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Shale Insight Conference Coming to Erie, PA Sept. 27-29

It’s already that time of year again! SHALE INSIGHT, one of the top conferences and expos in the Marcellus/Utica, will be held September 27-29 at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, PA. EQT, CNX Resources, and Chesapeake Energy CEOs, along with top natural gas sector executives, will share their vision and remarks. Hosted by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the conference will also feature perspectives from the European Commission’s Director General for Energy, the Pennsylvania candidates for U.S. Senate and Governor, as well as many technical breakout sessions focused on hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, methane mitigation, energy infrastructure, and industry innovations.
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Ohio Launches NARO Chapter for Landowners, Sept. Conference

The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) is a volunteer-led, member-based, nonprofit organization established in 1980 to help U.S. mineral owners. The mission of NARO is to support, advocate, and educate for the empowerment of mineral and royalty owners. There are ten active chapters serving 18 states, including NARO-Pennsylvania and NARO-Appalachia for West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. A relatively new chapter (for us anyway) is NARO-Ohio. The Ohio chapter formed in 2018 when it separated from the Appalachia chapter. NARO-Ohio, like all chapters, did not hold in-person meetings during the pandemic. NARO-Ohio is now back and will hold a statewide convention on Sept. 16-17.
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Conf. Tackles Question of How to Attract $2B Hydrogen Hub to M-U

Yesterday MDN friend Joe Barone from ShaleDirectories.com hosted the Appalachian Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Conference in Canonsburg, PA. By all accounts, it was a terrific event. One of the panels caught our eye. Speakers from Shell, Equinor, and U.S. Steel addressed the issue of attracting one of the four $2 billion hydrogen hubs promised as part of the infrastructure law to the Marcellus/Utica region. We were happy to see what they said about those efforts.
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FERC’s Dick Glick Gets All Defensive at CERAWeek Session

Richard Glick

Last Thursday S&P Global Vice Chairman Dan Yergin had a sitdown interview with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick at S&P’s CERAWeek conference in Houston, Texas. Yergin quizzed Glick closely about issues like LNG, Glick’s new rules for considering global warming when evaluating natural gas pipelines, and Glick’s anti-gas philosophy in general. Glick was, judging by the reports from the session, quite defensive.
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CERAWeek Panel: Why Oil & Gas Drillers Limit Growth to Single Digits

The CERAWeek conference was held in Houston, Texas all of last week. We’re still analyzing important news from the event. The CEOs of major drillers and midstream companies were there, as were heads of government agencies (like Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s incompetent Secretary of Energy). For example, we spotted a report from a session where the heads of three drillers, Pioneer Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips, and Chesapeake Energy, shared their insights on what lies ahead for 2022 and 2023. The panel provided insight into how and why growth (new drilling, more production) is being limited in U.S. shale plays, including in the Marcellus/Utica.
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