NextEra Energy Selling Its Stake in NE Pa. Marcellus Pipeline
Yesterday, the management of NextEra Energy announced it has officially lost its collective mind. The company is selling its two natural gas pipeline investments–one in Texas and the other right here in the heart of the Marcellus Shale–because it wants to concentrate 100% on unreliable (and government-funded) “renewable” energy projects instead. You may recall that NextEra bought Meade Pipeline Co LLC for $1.37 billion in 2019 (see NextEra Energy Buys 39% Stake in Atlantic Sunrise Pipe for $1.37B). Meade is another name for a small consortium that invested in the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project, which is majority owned and operated by Williams and a feeder pipeline of Marcellus molecules to the mighty Transco Pipeline system.
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Yesterday MDN told you about a new assault on the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania coming from the Chairman of the House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, anti-fossil fuel zealot Greg Vitali, who (along with 13 other leftists) introduced House Bill (HB) 962, aimed at raising the bonding rates for drilling new conventional wells in the state (see 
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), which treats the 17 counties in Pennsylvania under its jurisdiction as a fiefdom, has colluded with the leftists of the Big Green group Damascus Citizens for Sustainability to “settle” a lawsuit brought by the group against DRBC “forcing” the DRBC to further restrict and ban wastewater from conventional wells from being spread on roadways (dirt roads) in the 17 PA counties located behind the Iron Curtain of the DRBC.
Last summer Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 2644 was passed into law, becoming Act 96 of 2022 (see 
You’ve gotta give Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw credit–he sure knows how to get under the skin of the wackadoodle left! Yaw is the Majority Chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. His committee oversees (among other things) the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is the state agency that oversees energy industries, including shale drilling. Yesterday Yaw tweaked the left by announcing he will soon introduce a bill to remove the word “Protection” from the DEP’s name, and replace it with…
Yesterday Range Resources Corporation issued its first quarter 2023 update and held a conference call with analysts. On the call, retiring (as of May 10th) CEO Jeff Ventura proclaimed Range sits at the best spot it’s been in history. Ventura said, “For the Marcellus, the future is very bright.” Incoming CEO (currently COO) Dennis Degner echoed Ventura’s remarks and pledged to “stay the course” and continue to “block and tackle” in the months and years ahead.
S&P Global Commodity Insights reports that natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica has fallen this month, in April, by some 400 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) from the average production seen during the first quarter. The most notable declines are in eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania. Why is production down? Falling demand (from mild weather) and high rates of storage (extra supply) are crashing the spot price for natural gas traded at the region’s defacto benchmark trading hub–Eastern Gas South.
We appear to finally be at the end of an eight-year road with respect to new shale drilling regulations in Pennsylvania adopted back in 2016. Two days ago, the PA Supreme Court overturned a Commonwealth Court decision that blocked the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) ability to control shale drilling near schools and public playgrounds. In October 2016, after five years in the making, PA adopted new shale drilling regulations called Chapter 78 (see 
We sometimes ponder (and despair) over this question: Does the truth matter anymore? Do people actually care whether or not they are being lied to–by the government, by the media, by so-called experts? The trigger for our dark reflection on metaphysics comes from the news that the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) yesterday approved, by a vote of 3 to 2, a new regulation controlling volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and by extension, methane emissions, for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers. How is that news event related to truth and lies? We will explain.
Some 23 extremist so-called environmental groups from Pennsylvania (and beyond) sent a letter to federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan asking him to rachet up federal regulations to be so extreme it forces the remaining electric power plants in PA that use coal and natural gas to close down. The extremist groups include PennFuture (headed by former PA Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary Pat McDonnell), the so-called Clean Air Council (funded by the Haas and Heinz families), and the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association.
We spotted a post by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that, at first glance, we thought, “Yeah, we know that, and we’ve talked about it.” But on second glance, and after searching our own archives, we came to the conclusion that perhaps we haven’t talked about it. At least not plainly. The “it” we’re talking about is this: In 2022, Pennsylvania’s annual natural gas production *decreased* for the first time since the shale revolution began. Which is notable.
Newly-elected Gov. Josh Shapiro, who (we must say) has appeared to be completely ineffective since taking office (which is not necessarily a bad thing), appointed a working group to help guide him on what he should do with respect to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax and the broader issue of global warming. The panel is super-secret. Only two people who belong to the working group have been named, the two co-chairs: one from the radicalized National Resources Defense Council and one from a PA state labor union.
One of two original “anchor” applicants in the billion-dollar hydrogen hub Hunger Games contest that was part of Pennsylvania’s application was Equinor (the Norwegian super major formerly known as Statoil). The Pittsburgh Business Times reports Equinor is now out and has been replaced by Mitsubishi Power, which (among other things) builds natural gas and hydrogen turbines to generate electricity. Why did Equinor leave? Is this proposal in trouble?