Marcellus Shale Coalition Joins ‘High Octane Low Carbon Alliance’
Ever wonder what it feels like to dance with the devil? The Marcellus Shale Coalition is about to find out. The MSC (a great organization run by a great guy, Dave Spigelmyer) has joined a coalition of groups in what is being called the High Octane Low Carbon Alliance. Groups in the Alliance include the MSC, Renewable Fuels Association, Clean Fuels Development Coalition, and Fuel Freedom Foundation. The groups are not anti-fossil fuel, but rather dedicated to lowering the cost of transportation fuel, and the carbon content in that fuel. In essence, the aim of the group is to get us off foreign/imported oil that currently powers our transportation industry. So we can see why the MSC has thrown in its lot with the others in this Alliance. The devil is not the partners in the group–it’s the person representing and lobbying for them: Tom Daschle. Recognize the name? Before the gangster Harry Reid was Majority (and now Minority) leader in the U.S. Senate, Tom Daschle held that position. Daschle is an extremely partisan/left-wing Democrat. People like Daschle leave office rich–enriching themselves is what loathsome politicians like Daschle do best. After they leave office, that’s when they get fat cat rich–by becoming lobbyists. And so the MSC and other groups in the Alliance have contracted with the devil himself to represent them…
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LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is an increasingly important part of the natural gas ecosystem in the U.S. We’ve imported natgas for years–and we’re not beginning to export it as well. Each month the U.S. Dept. of Energy issues a report tabulating both imports and exports of LNG–who shipped it in and out, from where, and how much. It’s a good picture. The April report was recently released (takes a few months before the number crunchers are done). What do we find in the latest report (full copy below)? We find that the U.S. imported 34.8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas in the first four months of the year–all of it from Trinidad. We exported 28.9 Bcf during the same period. The vast majority of exports were from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, although a small amount of LNG was exported from American LNG’s export facility in Miami, Florida…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: NRDC Gang & The French Connection; PA rig count stabilizes; budget crunch deadline approaches in PA; nominations for Who’s Who in Energy; Raymond James sees oil at $80 in 2017/2018; EIA’s new data add-on tool for Google Sheets; another alarmist ethane study; LNG oversupply will stretch to 2024; and more!
Rice Energy and farmers in rural Belmont County, OH have a great relationship. You can tell by the way each talks about the other. Farmers love Rice because the company is responsible and works with farmers to protect their land and farming livelihood. And the farms of Belmont County have treated Rice Energy well–very well. Yesterday MDN reported on first quarter 2016 production in Ohio (see 
We’ve written plenty of stories about midstream (pipeline) companies “giving back” to the communities where they either currently, or plan in the future, to operate. Typically midstream companies donate a few thousand dollars to various nonprofit groups. It adds up. Recently PennEast Pipeline donated $85,000 to 17 different groups (see 
There is something about the proposed merger of Energy Transfer Equity and Williams that’s been bugging us. A uneasy feeling. Why is Williams trying so hard to make this deal happen–when they resisted it just as hard in the beginning? What changed? Why are they now insisting that ETE–who has gotten cold feet and wants out–go forward? Recently Williams published a letter from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)–a “leading proxy advisory firm”–recommending that shareholders in Williams vote “yes” on the merger with ETE (see 
An issue we’ve highlighted before and one we’d rather not talk about–but must–is the issue of layoffs in the Marcellus/Utica industry. A recent article in the Pittsburgh Times-Tribune paints a heart-wrenching picture of how layoffs are affecting places like Westmoreland County, where personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures are spiking due to energy industry layoffs…
Earlier this month MDN told you about five enviro gangsters who were arrested in Vermont for illegally chaining themselves to equipment to stop work on a new transmission pipeline–41 miles long–between Colchester to Middlebury (see 
We now know why the oil and gas industry has laid off some 200,000 people over the past few years–they’re not spending money. A new research report from powerhouse consulting firm Wood Mackenzie finds that global upstream development (i.e. drillers) have cut their spending from 2015-2020 by 22%. If you role in cuts to conventional drilling, the total amount cut from budgets (worldwide) from 2015-2020 is a staggering $1 trillion! One of the biggest expenses in a drilling operation is human resources–people. Unfortunately we don’t have a copy of the £1000 (~$1,500) report to share with you. But we do have a high level overview provided by Wood Mackenzie…
It will be fun to watch how anti-fossil fuelers will take this news–and attempt to spin and demagogue it. Blue Racer Midstream, a joint venture between Caiman Energy II and Dominion, owns several natural gas processing and fractionation plants, 650 miles of natgas gathering pipelines, and 155 miles of NGL and condensate pipelines in OH and WV. Blue Racer is a privately-held company, so we don’t have SEC reports and public statements about the company. However, every now again Blue Racer’s upper management shows up at an industry conference, as they did a few weeks ago at the Utica Midstream Seminar in Canton, OH (see 
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just issued production numbers for the first quarter of 2016. Compared with first quarter 2015, production numbers in 1Q16 continue to impress. Natural gas production from shale is up 80% year over year, and oil production is up 24% y/y. Below we have the ODNR’s high level overview of the numbers, along with MDN’s own exclusive analysis showing: the top 25 producing gas wells, the top 25 producing oil wells, and then the top 25 gas and oil wells as ranked by average production per day. There is a difference! The longer an oil or gas well is online, the less it produces. Newer wells produce more. So we show you which wells are not just producing the most quantity overall, but which wells are producing at the fastest (most productive) rates–even if they haven’t yet been online a full three months. We also include a link to the complete list of 1,351 wells included in the 1Q16 ODNR report–in a more usable format than that provided by the ODNR…
On Friday Williams issued a couple of interesting press releases related to what they hope is a vote to accept Energy Transfer Equity’s offer of a merger. The first press release says the Williams board will pay shareholders 10 cents per share as a bonus if they vote “for” the merger. A little incentive. What we would call a bribe–although there’s nothing illegal about it. It smacks of desperation in our book. But perhaps we know why they’re offering a little more honey to entice people to vote “yes” for the merger. That’s because of the second press release. When the merger was first announced, both ETE and Williams claimed there would be “$2 billion in annual synergies” between the two companies following a merger (see 
West Virginia had a contentious budget battle this year. Why? Because severance tax revenue for coal and oil & gas was down–way down. With no hint of it improving any time soon. WV’s budget heavily depends on severance tax revenue for the state’s annual budget. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin had to call a special session that last 17 days in order to get the budget passed. As part of that special session, new oil and gas rules from the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection were also passed. While the new rules don’t significantly alter existing regulations, the “subtle changes can lead to big headaches when enforced,” according to the legal beagles at Lewis Glasser Casey & Rollins. Here’s a quick overview of the changes, along with a copy of the full rule change document…