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U.S. Rig Count Down 9th Week in a Row, M-U Holds, Haynesville -6
The weekly rig count for the U.S. has continued to be anemic for over two months now. With its venerable rig count, Baker Hughes reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count continued to bleed rigs–down another eight rigs to 674 in the week ending June 30. That’s the lowest count since April 2022, and the ninth week in a row the U.S. has lost active rigs. The good news for the Marcellus/Utica is that both the Marcellus and the Utica maintained the same rig levels last week. It’s good news they didn’t bleed any more rigs. Note: We’ve added a couple of new weekly rig charts below to provide further context to the count and what it means for the M-U.
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Finally! On Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) builder Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to restart all remaining construction to install the final 6% of MVP in West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, FERC issued that permission. Ladies and gentlemen, start your bulldozers! Company spokeswoman Natalie Cox said crews will begin work “shortly” on all remaining construction. We don’t know what shortly means, but we hope it means this week.
It really is sad (and angering) to behold the tactics of the left. Their favorite #1 tactic is fear. If the left can convince you the end is near à la “climate change” and “ticking time bomb pipelines” and “bomb trains” and “radiation” and “water contamination” and other incendiary (false) claims about fossil energy, they have you. The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle and had stopped this 94% completed project cold. But then Congress passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see 
On Saturday, June 3, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023, also known as the “debt ceiling” bill, into law. Part of the new law is a provision that forces government agencies (on every level) to finish granting any outstanding permits to the long-stalled, 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The new law also ripped away the right of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to hear any further cases regarding MVP. All of which means construction should, theoretically, begin by the end of this month (see 
The weekly rig count for the U.S. has continued to be anemic over the past two months. Baker Hughes, with its venerable rig count, reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count continued to bleed rigs–down another five rigs to 682 in the week ending June 23. That’s the lowest count since April 2022 and the eighth week in a row the U.S. has lost active rigs. The good news for the Marcellus/Utica is that both the Marcellus and the Utica maintained the same rig levels last week. It’s good news they didn’t bleed any more rigs!
On June 8, the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection issued a renewed Section 401 water quality certification for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. In a court filing by MVP that shoves the news in the faces of the corrupt Democrat three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the judges are told as soon as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues a Section 404 water permit (deadline is June 24), construction will resume to finish up the final 6% of the MVP project. And there’s not a darned thing the 4th Circuit can do to stop it. Sweet victory. Sweet justice.
Last year after the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (from West Virginia) had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad this law really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it empowers the federal EPA to slap a new methane tax on oil and gas activities (see 
In May, the Bidenistas at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a hellscape of new regulations aimed at forcing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to close (see 
According to Baker Hughes, which has tracked rig counts since 1944, drillers cut the rig count once again last week (overall by a single rig), the sixth week in a row when the rig count has gone down. This is the first time the U.S. oil & gas rig count has gone down six weeks in a row since July 2020–nearly three years ago. Oil rigs rose by one last week to 556. Gas rigs fell two to 135, the lowest since March 2022. According to oil and gas expert David Blackmon (who writes for Forbes), a rig count slumping for six weeks in a row is a trend and cannot be ignored. What about the Marcellus/Utica?
It literally took an Act of Congress, but the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline will be, according to the builder and main owner, Equitrans, completed and online by the end of 2023. Victory!!! Finally, the good guys win one. The bulk of the credit for this significant victory goes to…House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who listened to the Republicans of West Virginia and stuck his own neck out to ensure this pipeline project gets completed by including it in the debt ceiling bill. Yes, liberal Democrat Joe Manchin gets credit for calling attention to the plight of MVP, but make no mistake–Manchin could not seal the deal. He fumbled the ball and could not get it across the finish line for a touchdown. It was McCarthy who picked up the ball and ran with it. It was Congresswoman Carol Miller (from West Virginia) and Senator Shelley Moore Capito (also from WV) who fought and lobbied (behind the scenes). Their work aided McCarthy in securing a place for MVP in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Hats off to the Republican delegation from WV for their success.
Although U.S. Senator Joe Manchin “absolutely thinks” that Congress will pass the debt ceiling bill negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, it’s still an open question as to whether or not it will pass. There are plenty of people on both ends of the political spectrum who are more than unhappy with the bill and plan to vote against it. At least, that’s what they say now. Today will be the acid test when a finalized bill appears and gets a vote in the House of Representatives. The billed, called the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” contains language that forces the completion of the 303-mile Marcellus/Utica Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Manchin says if the bill passes, all currently open and pending lawsuits against MVP in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will be immediately dismissed.
Big news over the weekend. President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling–into the stratosphere. Part of the deal is a provision in the 99-page “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” called Section 324, which expedites the completion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Needless to say, anti-fossil fuel nutters began howling at the moon and clawing at their faces upon hearing the MVP news.
Today’s lead story shares the good news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is finally getting a literal “act of Congress” to force its completion (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). One of the provisions in the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” (debt ceiling bill) removes jurisdiction to hear court cases brought against MVP away from the corrupt U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and gives it to the D.C. Circuit instead. Which may not be the panacea we were hoping for. On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled in a case concerning MVP that has the potential to delay the project further. So much for the D.C. Circuit being MVP’s savior…
Last Friday, Form Energy, a Boston-based firm building a utility-scale battery factory just across the Pennsylvania border in Weirton, West Virginia, held a groundbreaking ceremony on the site of a former steel plant. On hand for the ceremony were Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from WV. We don’t care a fig about the battery factory. It was comments about a potential Appalachian hydrogen hub, made during interviews at the event, that caught our attention. Granholm all but guaranteed a hydrogen hub is coming to our region. Hello, $1 billion! Joe Manchin went even further and said, “I think West Virginia is going to be awarded a hydrogen hub.” What does Joe know that we don’t?