NETL Helps Shale Drillers Understand How to Reduce Pipe Scaling
In an active unconventional (shale) well, where hydrocarbons and water are being produced at steady rates from a geochemically complex reservoir through production tubing, operations can be humming along smoothly until, quite suddenly, production slows and equipment malfunctions. The culprit? Quite often, it’s scale—a buildup of minerals on the inside of pipelines. Researchers with the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), with offices in both Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA, are leading efforts to reduce mineral scaling in hydraulic fracturing operations. Read More “NETL Helps Shale Drillers Understand How to Reduce Pipe Scaling”
BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm with some $9 trillion of assets under management, managed to get itself off the poopy list in Texas by ending its participation in a number of so-called ESG (environment, social, governance) groups and by groveling before Texas officials. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) pulled $8.5 billion of its investments away from BlackRock in March 2024 after the state determined that BlackRock was engaged in a boycott of energy companies by pressuring companies to avoid the fossil fuel sector by using ESG litmus tests (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Enterprise loads first ethane cargo from Neches River terminal; NATIONAL: Cutting the threat of giant wildfires by axing harmful Clinton-era forest policies; The peak oil myth is back—and it’s still a myth; The climate change cult is encountering more resistance these days; INTERNATIONAL: Oil slips on stronger dollar, trade doubts; Net zero ‘sustainable’ trains unsustainable?; Climate is the biggest transfer of money from the poor to the rich since Sheriff of Nottingham; EU ‘far right’ wants 2040 climate target binned; BP to exit $36B Australian green hydrogen hub. 
For the week of July 14 – 20, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica decreased from the previous week. There were 17 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, four fewer than the 21 issued two weeks ago. The Keystone State (PA) issued just four new permits. All were single permits. Range Resources received its permit for a well in Allegheny County. EQT got a permit for a well in Greene County. Infinity Natural Resources’ (INR) permit was in Indiana County. And Expand Energy’s permit was in Wyoming County. 
Range Resources issued its second quarter 2025 update on Wednesday. Range’s production averaged 2.20 Bcfe/d, approximately 68% natural gas. Range drilled ~285,000 lateral feet across 20 wells, while turning to sales ~156,000 lateral feet across 12 wells. 2Q25 drilling and completion expenditures were $136 million. In addition to D&C spending, Range spent approximately $11 million on acreage and $7 million on infrastructure, pneumatic devices, and other investments. The company announced it is targeting power generation to grab some of the 4-5 Bcf/d of forecasted new demand coming from the powergen sector. 
In late 2022, MDN told you that Canadian-based Enerplus, with sizable non-operated assets in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, had sold certain Canadian assets so it could concentrate most of its activity on drilling in the North Dakota Bakken (see 
Pennsylvania’s Republican Attorney General, Dave Sunday, has turned out to be a MAJOR disappointment. Yesterday, Sunday’s office filed 14 criminal counts against Equitrans Midstream (now owned and part of EQT Corporation) for an accident that happened in 2022. In November 2022, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County, began to leak. Equitrans is the owner/operator of Rager Mountain. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
Duke Energy is a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, NC, and is one of America’s largest energy holding companies. Duke’s electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, and it collectively owns 50,000 megawatts of energy-generating capacity. Duke’s natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Kentucky. The company employs 28,000 people. We’ve covered many stories over the years of Duke seeking to build new gas-fired power generation throughout its territory. Here’s another new one: Duke wants to build two new gas-fired power plants (combined capacity of 850 megawatts) near its home base, just outside of Charlotte in Rowan County, NC. 
In January 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a leftist Democrat, floated a plan to ban natural gas hookups in every single new home and business across the “Empire” State (see 
EQT Corporation delivered its latest quarterly update yesterday for the second quarter of 2025. It was jam-packed. The company had a fantastic 2Q25, including closing on the acquistion of Olympus Energy for $1.8 billion, launching an open season to increase the capacity of the southbound Mountain Valley Pipeline from 2.0 to 2.5 Bcf/d, and making two deals (although not yet finalized) to provide 800 MMcf/d of natural gas for the Shippingport Power Station in Beaver County, PA, and 665 MMcf/d for the Homer City Redevelopment project in Indiana County, PA. EQT also signed an agreement to be the exclusive provider of midstream infrastructure for West Virginia’s first large-scale natural gas power plant and secured a third-party gathering contract to expand the Saturn pipeline system in West Virginia. 
Embedded in yesterday’s EQT Corporation update for the second quarter was the news that EQT’s plan to expand capacity along the existing 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, is getting a “jumpstart” this year. One year ago, EQT announced a plan to expand capacity along MVP, from 2.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to 2.5 Bcf/d (see 
In June, EQT Corp. agreed to pay $167.5 million to investors who claimed the company overstated the benefits of its $6.7 billion merger with Rice Energy (see 
According to Enverus Intelligence Research, the upstream M&A (mergers and acquisitions) sector “hit the brakes” during the second quarter, falling 21% quarter-over-quarter to $13.5 billion. There were two Marcellus/Utica deals in the top five. Actually, our two deals were in the top three. The announcement by EOG Resources cutting a deal to buy Encino Energy in the Ohio Utica for $5.6 billion was the #1 highest value M&A deal in upstream O&G during 2Q (see 
Ascent Resources, founded as American Energy Partners by Aubrey McClendon, a gas industry legend, is a privately held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. Yesterday, Ascent published its 2024 Sustainability Report, chronicling the company’s environmental, health and safety; social; and governance (ESG) efforts and accomplishments in 2024.