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PA & OH Natural Gas Production Nosedived Last Week, Down 2 Bcf/d
Two days ago MDN brought you news that natural gas prices in the Marcellus/Utica region are about to get really ugly, at least for the next couple of months (see Ugly Gas Prices Coming to M-U – Demand Falls More than Production). We now have the other side of the coin to share. M-U producers are shutting-in gas production like crazy. Last week M-U gas flows went down a huge 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d)–from 32 to 30 Bcf/d.
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Last week Ohio finally broke the drought of not issuing permits for new shale wells in the Buckeye State. Finally! Last week Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits for wells on three well pads. Ohio issued 4 new permits for wells on two well pads. And West Virginia issued 1 new permit.
On Sept. 10, a day after a meeting of the West Virginia Economic Development Authority meeting, we reported (based on media reports) that the Authority had voted to approve a $5.5 million loan guarantee for a proposed new shale gas-fired power plant planned for Brooke County, WV (see 
Justice (with a small “j”) has prevailed in West Virginia. We’ve covered the issue of a proposed new shale gas-fired power plant planned for Brooke County, WV for years. We are down to the wire on some of the final bits needed for this project to advance. One of those bits, the last major hurdle, is a loan guarantee for $5.5 million, covering a tiny part of the financing required to build this nearly $1 billion project. Yesterday the WV Economic Development Authority unanimously approved the loan guarantee.
We should have known that West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is in league with his fellow coal baron Robert Murray. Officials from Brooke County, WV, where Energy Solutions Consortium is planning to build a $1.25 billion natural gas-fired power plant, are blaming the long fingers of Bob Murray for a last-minute delay of a state loan guarantee that was supposed to be made in August (see 
What is wrong with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice? Last week we told you about Justice trash-talking a proposed natural gas-fired electric plant planned for Brooke County (see 
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. Peregrine announced yesterday the company has cut a deal to buy “producing royalties in Doddridge County, West Virginia from several private sellers.” The private sellers are landowners/rights owners with wells drilled by Antero Resources and Jay-Bee Oil & Gas. No details on how much the deal was for.
Another week, another look at the rig count. The onshore rig count continues to bump along near the bottom of historic lows. It’s not AT the bottom (thank God), but it does continue to flirt with low numbers. According to Enverus, which tracks rigs using GPS units, the count bottomed at the beginning of July with 264 active rigs. Since then it’s risen and currently stands around 280 rigs. Week to week it goes up and it goes down, but not down significantly. According to Enverus, the count lost a rig last week.
We’re always suckers for railroad story. Not sure why, but we love reading about short line railroads that do well because of the shale industry. We spotted such a story about the 48-mile short line Belpre Industrial Parkersburg (BIP) Railroad between Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Relief, Ohio (via Marietta). BIP expects to double its traffic over the next year to 18 months thanks to the Marcellus/Utica Shale industry and the business it’s generating.
Waaaiiit just a minute. Did we just slip through the looking glass? Ten Democrat State Senators from West Virginia sent a letter earlier this week to Warren Buffett asking the billionaire to consider investing in natural gas projects in the Mountain State. The letter states their sadness that Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled, but expresses hope that Buffett’s purchase of Dominion’s other pipeline assets augurs a bright future. We could have sworn this letter was sent by conservative Republicans!
Whew. We can now breathe a sigh of relief. On July 7 TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission subsidiary announced an unplanned outage (for maintenance work) for the Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline in West Virginia–near Leach, Kentucky (see 
West Virginia University (WVU) has created a new “