August EIA DPR: NatGas Production Declines in All 7 Shale Plays
The great slowdown in natural gas production continues in the United States. On Monday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued the latest monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), predicting shale oil and gas production by shale play for the seven major commercially active plays in the U.S. For the first time since the EIA began issuing the DPR all seven plays show a month over month decrease in the amount of natural gas being produced. Last month the Utica Shale play stood alone as the only play that increased natgas volumes month over month (see July EIA DPR – Utica Stands Alone with Higher Natgas Production). This month, even the Utica has gone negative–dropping 3 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) in production over the previous month…
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Ever hear the phrase, “diggin’ deep”? That’s what anti-drillers are doing in New Hampshire with their opposition to a pipeline slated to come through their area in Hillsborough County. As plans for Kinder Morgan’s $6 billion Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project that will stretch from Pennsylvania through New York into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back into Massachusetts near Boston progress, more and more articles appear in newspapers, like the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, attempting to convince people the pipeline is from Satan himself. In fact, according to the latest article, NED may just be from Satan! The Ledger-Transcript claims the pipeline, if it follows the same route as already-built high voltage electric lines, would cut through a hay field that (151 years ago) used to be a potato field and is the site of a miracle of importance to Seventh-Day Adventists…
On Friday Baker Hughes, which is being forced into a merger with Halliburton by the end of this year/early next year, issued a summary of rig counts last Friday. At first blush it appears to be good news, but when you dig under the surface, it’s not–at least for the Marcellus/Utica. The international rig count was 1,118, down 28 from the 1,146 counted in June 2015. However, the average U.S. rig count for July 2015 was 866, up 5 from the 861 counted in June 2015. It appears we’ve turned the corner on how low rig counts will go–we’ve bottomed and are either holding steady (in the U.S.), or perhaps every so slightly gaining ground again. But then we ran the numbers for the Marcellus/Utica and found rig counts continue to decline month over month…