Mizuho Securities Says Marcellus “Worth About $20,000 an Acre”
We spotted a fascinating Hart Energy article that summarizes information from a recently released Mizuho Securities study. Mizuho researcher Nitin Kumar says that we are roughly halfway through the shale revolution. He posits that approximately 290,000 horizontal wells have been landed in shale rock in the Lower 48 and that under current economic conditions and with current technology, another 270,000 locations remain. It will take another 25 years to drill them, says Kumar. Which is interesting, although we take some issue with those findings. However, embedded in the statistics is something that caught our attention: the value of undeveloped acreage in various shale plays, including the Marcellus. Read More “Mizuho Securities Says Marcellus “Worth About $20,000 an Acre””
As we previously reported, a truly mind-blowing event was held in Pittsburgh last week—the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, organized by PA Senator Dave McCormick (see 
On July 8, PA State Senator Art Haywood (Democrat from Philadelphia) introduced PA Senate Bill (SB) 910, which slaps a 6.5% severance tax on the gross production of all oil and natural gas produced in the state (see 
We finally saw some relief last week for the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count, which added rigs for the first time in three months (12 weeks). The U.S. count added seven rigs and now stands at 544 active rigs. However, it was gas-focused rigs that saved the day. The number of oil-focused rigs continued to fall last week (down another two) while gas-focused rigs had a massive increase (up by nine). The Marcellus/Utica count stayed even last week (after falling by one three weeks ago) at a combined 35 active rigs. There were 23 rigs targeting the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeting the Utica last week. 
As we reported on Wednesday, a truly mind-blowing event was held in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit organized by PA Senator Dave McCormick (see 
The largest amount of money to be invested in Pennsylvania in the coming decade by a single company, announced yesterday at Senator Dave McCormick’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit held in Pittsburgh, came from Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Blackstone pledged to invest *at least* $25 billion in the next 10 years in the Keystone State to (a) build data centers in the northeastern part of the state, and (b) build new Marcellus-fired power plants to provide electricity for those data centers. It’s a staggering amount of money. Blackstone President & COO, Jon Gray, was at yesterday’s event and said PA’s access to natural gas gives it a considerable advantage. “You can co-locate the data centers directly next to the source of power. That’s really the secret sauce here.” The Marcellus is responsible for Blackstone’s $25 billion investment! STAGGERING. 
You gotta hand it to Pennsylvania Democrats. They LOVE LOVE LOVE to tax other people’s money—especially companies and industries that they hate, like the state’s oil and gas industry. On July 8, PA State Senator Art Haywood (Democrat from Philadelphia) introduced PA Senate Bill (SB) 910, which slaps a 6.5% severance tax on the gross production of all oil and natural gas produced in the state. However, the bill goes further by repealing the provision in the 2012 Act 13 law that states that if a severance tax is ever implemented, the existing impact fee would be eliminated. In other words, Haywood’s bill eliminates the provision to end the impact fee, meaning the impact fee would remain in place. So, drillers would be taxed twice for the same thing. Fortunately, the bill is DOA in the Senate. 
The media fuss is hard to miss about today’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit being held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. PA Senator Dave McCormick organized the event. Among the attendees will be President Trump, several cabinet secretaries, and other White House officials. Much of the buzz is around $90 billion in AI and energy investments expected to be announced. In preparation for the big event, a roundtable was held yesterday at CNX headquarters in Washington County, PA, to discuss clearing away permitting obstacles and red tape to help PA realize some (if not most) of that $90 billion in investments. 
The more the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) beats the drum to say it has solved the slooooooow permitting process in the state, the more hollow it rings. It seems like every other week, the DEP issues a press release to announce it has almost cleared all of the agency’s backlog of permits. Another such pronouncement was issued yesterday. The DEP claims its permit backlog has been reduced by 98% since November 2023, decreasing the backlog from over 2,400 permit applications to fewer than 50. Good for them. 
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count has been hemorrhaging for 11 consecutive weeks. Last week, the U.S. rig count declined by another two rigs to its lowest level since October 2021, ending the week at 537 active rigs. You have to go back to the dark days of the pandemic, July 2020, for the previous 11+ consecutive weeks of decline in the rig count. The Marcellus/Utica stayed even (after falling by one two weeks ago) at a combined 35 active rigs. There were 23 rigs targeting the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeting the Utica last week. 
When referring to Big Green groups in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, we often label the groups as “colluding,” meaning they coordinate their legal and public relations attacks against fossil fuel companies. It is something we have long suspected but (unfortunately) can’t prove definitively. We had hoped Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) was about to prove it (see 
Environment-related permitting in Pennsylvania, overseen by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six months for approval, instead of the policy-mandated 14 days. The DEP announced last November that it would soon implement the SPEED (Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development) program to speed up the permit approval process (see 
The number crunchers at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analyzed proved reserves data for 2023 (the most recent year available) and determined that proved reserves of U.S. natural gas decreased 12.6% year over year, from 691.0 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to 603.6 Tcf. This was the first annual decrease in U.S. natural gas reserves since 2020. Looking at the numbers for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, natural gas proved reserves decreased by 4% (PA), 13% (OH), and 6% (WV) from 2022 to 2023. The report shows that Marcellus gas reserves dropped 5.9% in 2023.