Study: The High Cost of Capturing Every Last Molecule of Methane
A few weeks ago MDN brought you the news that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued onerous new regulations on capturing every last molecule of methane all along the route from wellhead to burner tip (see EPA Does it Again: Tries to Destroy O&G with New Methane Rule). The EPA issued 600 pages of new regulations that requires the industry to install expensive new equipment to locate so-called fugitive methane that may or may not be leaking from wells, pipelines, etc. And if they find such microscopic amounts of methane, they need to capture it. All in the name of preventing non-existent man-made global warming. The EPA reassures the oil and gas industry it’s no big deal. Just install some new equipment, jump through a bunch of hoops, and in no time ‘t all you’ll be making money instead of spending it to comply with the new regs. That is a flat, outright, BS (Barbara Streisand) lie. We have proof. A new study from ICF International has run the numbers from some actual operations and finds the cost to comply with these onerous new regs is 5 times more than what the EPA has estimated. Let’s put it in very understandable terms. The ICF study finds in order to comply with the regs, it will cost $3.35 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) for the volume of gas it will save. Producers are only able to sell their gas at an average of $3/Mcf. In other words, the industry will lose money to comply with the regulation, contrary to the line of bull the EPA has tried to feed us…
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RigData is one of the oil and gas industry’s most trusted sources for information on drilling activity in the U.S. RigData provides details on drilling rigs–where they are, who’s operating them, what kind of well they’re drilling. RigData publishes reports daily, weekly and monthly. We’ve seen their web and mobile phone app–seriously cool stuff. The company has been around for 25 years. So it was like a fracking-induced earthquake to discover that RigData has been sold–to S&P Global Platts. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Here’s the earth-shaking announcement…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Insider’s guide to Range Resources; risks and opportunities with northeast pipelines; NY oil company shuns shale; Utica rig count shrinks to 9; Shell has already spent $500 million on PA cracker plant; another dullard town in CT bans frack waste; Mark Ruffalo’s phony water scams; oil stays above $50; and more!
“Unbelievably dense” is how we would describe the “leaders” of Munroe Falls, Ohio. Going back to 2012, Monroe Falls–a “city” with a population of 5,000–has been attempting to stop legally permitted wells from being drilled on private property within city limits. Munroe Falls ordered Beck Energy to cease and desist drilling activity claiming the driller had not secured permits from the city first (Mother May I?). The object was to never let Beck drill, to deny them the permits they would need to seek, so Beck took them to court and an Ohio appeals court struck down Munroe Falls’ “home rule” zoning ordinances as illegal (see 
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 75,000 acres of leases. Last year Stone quit drilling in the northeast and actually shut-in part of their production due to low prices (see 
Rex Energy, a small Marcellus/Utica driller headquartered in State College, PA, is trying to keep its head above the financial waterline. It’s struggling, but making progress. In April Rex became the latest driller to convert outstanding debt in the form of notes (what we call IOUs) into equity, or stock ownership (see 
Strong demand from electric power generators will push natural gas demand this summer up by an estimated 4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), according to a new report from the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA). However, even though there’s more demand, because supplies are so bountiful, the price of natural gas over the summer is actually expected to go down, not up. Using published data and independent analyses, NGSA evaluated the combined impact of weather, economic growth, customer demand, storage inventories and production activity on the direction of natural gas prices for the summer of 2016 compared to last summer. The NGSA says summer 2016 will see a “remarkable growth in demand.” Even so, NGSA expects “downward pressure on prices compared to last summer.” Bummer. It’s great news for consumers and power generating plants. But not so good news for drillers. Below we have a full copy of the NGSA report…
CNBC, not known for being an objective news source (witness the Republican debate debacle earlier this year), conducted a survey among 22 strategists, traders and analysts on the topic of the price of oil. MDN sometimes covers oil stories because natural gas oil are joined at the hip. Often the same E&Ps that drill for oil also drill for gas. And when you drill a hole in the ground, you get what you get–not only oil, but “associated gas” and gas liquids. Hydrocarbons of all kinds come out of the holes drilled. So it pays to pay attention to the oil market and what’s happening with the price of oil. According to the CNBC survey, those responding said overall they expect drilling to pick back up with the price hitting $50 per barrel. But they also said it won’t really pick up in earnest until the price hits $60 per barrel. Roughly half expect the price of oil to remain in the $40-$50 range until the end of 2016, with the other half thinking it will go higher. Only 9% believe come Dec. 31 the price will be at or above $60/barrel…
We’ve previously written about the so-called fossil fuel divestment movement–a push to get investors to dump stocks in oil and gas companies in a bid to bankrupt those companies (and send us all back to the energy Stone Age). Major universities hold huge investments of all kinds, including in fossil fuel companies. The crazies are pressuring them to dump those stocks. To their credit, the leaders of Cornell University said they will keep their fossil fuel investments (see 
MDN previously reported on the injustice happening in Bulter County, PA where a handful of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”), backed by money from Philadelphia Big Green groups Delaware Riverkeeper and Clean Air Council, have filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. The effort is aimed at denying landowners in Middlesex Township revenue from legally permitted drilling. The actions by these radicalized parents have cost the taxpayers of Middlesex Township over $80,000 in legal fees. Landowners with leases got together and sued the radicals to stop this miscarriage of justice (see 
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” Not long ago MDN reported that Eclipse Resources had drilled what is believed to be the longest horizontal well (on land) in the world–the 3.5 mile “Purple Hayes” Utica Shale well (see