FERC Report Blames M-U for Electric Almost-Outage Last Winter
Less than a year ago, the Northeast experienced a major winter storm at Christmastime (Winter Storm Elliott). Do you remember it? On Dec. 23, temps in places like the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania hit 60 degrees! Within 12 hours, the bottom dropped out, with temps plunging into the single digits—a more than 50-degree change. Dec. 24’s high temp in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown) was 13 degrees. The massive temperature change caused problems with power generation by natural gas plants, some of which went offline due to freeze-ups in the pipelines that feed them. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a final report yesterday on Winter Storm Elliott, complete with recommendations for sweeping new regulations to prevent future blackouts from storms like Elliott.
Read More “FERC Report Blames M-U for Electric Almost-Outage Last Winter”
New shale permits issued for Sep 11 – 17 in the Marcellus/Utica rebounded. There were 22 new permits issued last week, up from 14 issued two weeks ago. But the increase came from an unlikely source. Last week’s permit tally included 9 new permits in Pennsylvania, 1 new permit in Ohio, and 12 new permits in West Virginia. WV is typically on the low end of permits, not the high end. The top permittee for the week was Antero Resources, which received 6 permits in WV. EQT was a close second with 5 permits in WV.
In April, MDN told you about a radicalized faction within the Pennsylvania Democrat Party trying yet another ploy to block all new Marcellus drilling in the state (see 
Have we finally turned a corner? Hit rock bottom and have begun a rebound? We are referring to the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count. Last Monday, we reported the weekly rig count had finally gained a rig–the first time since June (see 
Thanks to the good work of Pennsylvania’s Senate Republicans, residents and ratepayers across the Commonwealth have been spared a spike in their electricity rates for a seventh time. The state just missed the latest so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) “auction” that forces coal- and gas-fired power plants to pay obscenely high taxes to continue operating. As a bonus, missing the auction denies Democrats in Harrisburg millions of dollars in play money they can line their pockets with (and line the pockets of those who support them). That’s called a win/win!
The nutters are out in full force, particularly in Pennsylvania, using fraudulent “studies” by the Ohio River Valley Insititute (ORVI) and (sadly) the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to call for an end to the Marcellus industry in the great Keystone State. A recent “letter to the editor” appearing in the Sunbury (PA) Daily Item is a perfect example. On Sept. 3, the Daily Item ran an op-ed titled “Is fracking good for Pennsylvania,” concluding that it is not. It was written by a member of the Climate Reality Project, a far-left organization that irrationally hates fossil energy. The typical references were made to the fraudulent ORVI and Pitt studies. Ten days later, another op-ed appeared in the Daily Item, written by David Callahan from the Marcellus Shale Coalition, setting the record straight.
For the first time since June, the national active U.S. rig count added rigs–a single rig–last week. The new active U.S. rig count is 632, up from 631 the previous week. Unfortunately, the Marcellus/Utica lost yet another rig, sinking to 39 active rigs. Once again, West Virginia was the unlucky state that lost a rig, now running just 8 shale rigs. The rig counts for both Pennsylvania and Ohio stayed the same last week.
On February 14, 2022, Energy Transfer Marketing & Terminals, L.P. (ETMT) applied to expand the company’s ethane chilling capacity at the Marcus Hook Terminal (MHT) from approximately 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 85,000 bpd. Because the facility is located in a so-called Environmental Justice (EJ) area, the DEP is conducting an even more painful anal exam (than usual) before issuing a permit for the expansion. Part of that examination will be a public hearing on Sept. 19, 2023, in Boothwyn, PA, from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Every single week, we read stories in mainstream media (and in the fringe environmental media) that declare so-called renewables, namely solar and wind, are taking the world by storm. They’re replacing fossil fuels. The fat lady is just about ready to sing and bring down the curtain on fossil energy because wind and solar are taking over, baby. Except it’s all a lie! The editor of the Times Observer (in Warren, PA), The Post-Journal (in Jamestown, NY), and the OBSERVER (in Dunkirk, NY) penned a sobering column that points out wind and solar contribute roughly 2% of the electricity flowing to the grid in New York State, and not much more for the grid in Pennsylvania.
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for April through June 2023 (full copy below). There were 94 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 2Q23, a huge decrease of 39 wells (-29%) compared to 2Q22. Data for July and August 2023 show that new wells spud declined 48% (!) from the same period in 2022. Ouch. However, natural gas production volume was 1,859 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2Q23, up 7 Bcf (+0.3%) from 2Q22. It is the first quarter without a year-over-year production decline since 2Q22. Let’s celebrate the small victories, right?
Last November, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see