Duke Energy Files to Build 2 Gas-Fired Power Plants in Indiana
Cayuga Station, owned by Duke Energy, is a three-unit coal-fired power plant built between 1970 and 1993 in Vermillion County, Indiana. The existing plant produces as much as 1,040 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Duke recently filed a request with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) for permission to build two new gas-fired plants at the Cayuga site to replace the coal-fired units. The combined output of the new gas-fired plants will be 1,510 MW. The plan is to build and commission the gas-fired plants first and then shut down the coal-fired plants. Read More “Duke Energy Files to Build 2 Gas-Fired Power Plants in Indiana”
An interesting report from BTU Analytics connects many of the dots that (for us) have been missing with respect to hydrogen production from natural gas that captures carbon dioxide in the process—called “blue hydrogen.” As you know, we’ve been skeptical of the big push to produce hydrogen as a magic replacement for other forms of energy, particularly natural gas. Environmentalists pay lip service to loving hydrogen because it burns “clean” with no CO2 emissions. Why not just burn natural gas (and capture the CO2) instead of going through the time and expense of converting natural gas into hydrogen? Please, don’t ask such common-sense questions. It marks you as a MAGA extremist. 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: NextDecade strikes LNG supply deal with TotalEnergies for 1.5 million tonnes annually; Stakeholders respond to Mass. proposal to limit cost recovery for gas expansion; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas slumps to nine-week low on record production, expected lower demand; White House ends funding for key U.S. climate body; Sustaining energy dominance in a shifting global market; INTERNATIONAL: Oil prices flat amid trade and Iran talks; OPEC cuts oil demand forecast for 2025 and 2026 on trade war; BMI reveals latest Brent oil price forecasts; Trump has been proven right about pretty much everything. 
The Baker Hughes U.S. national rig count cratered last week, losing seven rigs. The U.S. count is now 583 active rigs, the biggest weekly decline since June 2024. As for the Marcellus/Utica, the rig count was a combined 35 last week, losing one rig it had gained the week before. The Marcellus lost one of the two rigs it had gained two weeks ago and now sports 24 rigs across the three M-U states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Rigs focused on the Utica remained unchanged at a combined 11. However, there were shifts among two of the three M-U states. PA picked up one rig and now operates 16 rigs. The last time PA operated 16 rigs was last December. The biggest news is that WV, which had operated 10 or more rigs for most of the past year (34 weeks in a row), broke its streak and lost two rigs. WV now operates nine rigs. 
EQT Corporation wants to build three miles of gathering pipeline to a well pad in Cascade Township, Lycoming County, PA. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin inviting comments on a Chapter 105 Encroachment permit for a three-mile-long, 8-inch natural gas gathering pipeline being constructed on a 50-foot-wide right-of-way. 
In March, MDN told you about a legislative proposal from newly elected West Virginia Governor Pat Morrisey, a measure called the Power Generation and Consumption Act (House Bill 2014) to expand data center development in the state (see 
Democrat politicians, like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, are predictable. Shapiro, Murphy, and other Dem governors in the PJM Interconnection electric grid region, which includes all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., have ratcheted up their rhetoric blaming PJM for higher electricity prices, even though it is their own policies that are driving electric prices higher! Always blame someone else for your shortcomings; that’s their motto. 
We spotted a couple of stories, one by PBS and another by the financial publication Barron’s, covering the “groundswell” of opposition to resurrecting the 124-mile Pennsylvania-to-New York Constitution Pipeline project. According to a letter signed by “233 environmental and community groups,” the proposed pipeline poses “a serious threat to state sovereignty.” Here’s the first thing to note: Enviro-lefties file paperwork to form a “group” of one or two people. It looks great on letterhead to list hundreds of organizations, implying thousands of people. However, it would be more accurate to say “233 individuals” instead of 233 groups of people. At any rate, we will repeat an observation we have made almost since beginning to write the MDN site in 2009: Many in the anti-fracking and anti-pipeline movement are old (sometimes young) hippies looking to relive the glory days of Vietnam protests. 
In early April, MDN brought you the exciting news that THE largest gas-fired power plant in the country, along with a MASSIVE data center complex, will be built at a former coal-fired power plant site in Indiana County, PA (see 
For the week of Mar 31 – Apr 6, the number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica to drill new shale wells increased by two from the previous week. Last week, 21 new permits were issued, with 12 going to the Keystone State (PA). Expand Energy, via its merged companies Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy, scored five permits, with three permits for Southwestern in Susquehanna County and two for Chesapeake in Bradford County. Greylock Energy received three permits for drilling in Potter County. Range Resources also received three permits to drill wells in Lycoming and Washington counties. 
Last week MDN brought you the great news that Boardwalk Pipeline Partners launched an open season to offer an extra 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of capacity along its 5,975-mile Texas Gas Transmission pipeline network that stretches from Ohio to Louisiana, running through Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas along the way (see 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook yesterday, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA boosted its estimates for the Henry Hub price. The agency now expects the HH price to average $4.30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2025, ten cents higher than last month’s forecast. EIA expects the annual average price in 2026 will be $4.60/MMBtu, also ten cents higher than last month’s forecast. The basis for the rise in the price forecast is lower storage levels. Inventories of stored gas are 4% below the five-year average. 
A month ago, MDN told you about a meeting held in northeastern Pennsylvania between newly-appointed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, several state elected officials, as well as labor and others (see 
Does Donald Trump ever sleep? He just keeps churning out the hits, day after day and week after week. Two days ago, President Trump signed two more executive orders (EOs) and a memorandum related to energy. On April 9, the President issued a new executive order requiring agencies to adopt one-year sunset dates on any existing regulations affecting energy. A second order requires agencies to identify regulations that limit competition. The President also signed a memorandum implementing a previous EO, directing the repeal of unlawful regulations under 10 recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including the Supreme Court decision overturning the “Chevron doctrine.”