TVA Green Lights New 500 MW Natural Gas Power Plant in Mississippi
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the U.S. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see TVA Investing $1B to Build New Natgas-Fired Electric Plants). As part of the overall plan, in 2023, TVA proposed to build a new gas-fired plant at the site of a former privately operated power plant in Mississippi (see TVA Proposes New 500 MW Natural Gas Power Plant in Mississippi). Last Friday, TVA pulled the trigger and made a final investment decision to move forward with the project. Read More “TVA Green Lights New 500 MW Natural Gas Power Plant in Mississippi”
MDN chronicled the rise and fall of Tellurian, founded by Charif Souki (who also founded Cheniere Energy), and Tellurian’s LNG export project, Driftwood. Tellurian’s primary focus was to build Driftwood LNG, a 27.6 million tonnes of LNG per year facility that would cost $14.5 billion. Construction began on the project in March 2022, even without a final investment decision (see 
Well, look at this. After liquefying and exporting over 350 cargoes of LNG from March 1, 2022, through January 2025, Venture Global says its Calcasieu Pass (CP) LNG export facility is finally “ready” to begin “commercial” operations….on April 15th of this year. Nearly three years after it began shipping LNG. Venture Global has claimed the CP facility was not commercially ready until now. 
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, appeared virtually before the ARC Conference in London yesterday. ARC stands for The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations. The ARC organization tilts right. During a Q&A interview, Wright shared some fantastic truths, among them: “Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal, it’s a terrible goal.” He also said that countries that set net zero goals “export your industry.” And net-zero “is not energy transition” but instead “is lunacy.” Three cheers for Chris Wright! 
NATIONAL: Chevron vice chairman confirms job cuts; INTERNATIONAL: EU Commission warns a host of member states on adoption of energy rules; Will Europe return to Putin’s gas?; Is an oil market share war on the cards for 2025?; Coal’s persistence signals the myth of the energy transition. 
Never in our wildest dreams did we see this one coming. And we must caution against too much hope. However, we are JAZZED. Last Friday, President Trump signed yet another executive order. This EO creates the National Energy Dominance Council, directing the new council to move quickly to increase domestic oil and gas production (see our companion post today for details). During comments with reporters at the EO signing, Trump vowed to complete the long-dead Pennsylvania Marcellus to New York State Constitution Pipeline! Trump’s own words: “We are going to get this done, and once we start construction, we’re looking at anywhere from nine to 12 months.” Holy smokes!!!! 
President Trump signed an executive order Friday establishing the National Energy Dominance Council. The Council will be chaired by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and vice-chaired by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The other members are essentially all of the cabinet members, the secretaries of the other executive branch agencies, including State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, EPA, and a litany of others. Among the instructions (duties) of the new Council is this: “Advise the President on how best to exercise his authority to produce more energy to make America energy dominant.” During a confab with reporters, President Trump said, “We have more energy than any other country, and now we’re unleashing it.” The council will advise the president on energy markets, investments, and how to keep the cost of energy down for Americans. 
For the third week in a row, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count regained some of the rigs lost earlier this year. Two weeks ago, the rig count gained four rigs to 586. Last week the count regained another two rigs to 588. Note that for much of last year, the national count remained in a very tight range of 581-589. It seems like equilibrium is returning. As for the Marcellus/Utica, the rig count was a combined 34 last week—the same number for ten weeks in a row. It looks like we’ve hit an equilibrium in the M-U, too. 
DUCs are drilled but uncompleted wells. Drillers sink a hole first and then return later to “complete” the well by fracking it and connecting it to sales. An increase in DUCs means more new drilling is happening. A decrease in DUCs means fewer new wells are drilled while previously drilled wells are completed. According to a report by Enverus, some drillers have entered 2025 with substantially fewer DUCs than last year, creating potential effects on capital efficiency and production. Nearly every shale play, including the Marcellus/Utica, has seen DUCs fall. In some cases, by the hundreds. 
Last December, MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection could find $600,000 to blow on “environmental justice” nonsense, but the very next day, it cried poverty that there’s not enough money in the budget to fund the Oil and Gas Regulatory Program (see 
ECA Marcellus Trust I, the royalty interest holder in some of the wells drilled and maintained by Greylock Energy in Greene County, PA, announced last Thursday that it will issue a two-cent dividend to unitholders for the fourth quarter of 2024. The company paid half a penny dividend in 3Q24. The company continues to hold back some profits ($90,000 in 4Q24) to build a cash reserve for “future known, anticipated or contingent expenses or liabilities.” 
For the week of Feb 3 – 9, the number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica to drill new shale wells remained healthy. Two weeks ago, 22 new permits were issued. Last week, the number increased to 24 new permits issued. The Keystone State (PA) issued 11 new permits last week. Nine permits went to Range Resources for two pads in Washington County. One permit each went to Snyder Brothers and EQT in Armstrong and Greene counties, respectively. 
Something is going on in the State of Maryland. Last week, we told you that the Democrat leadership in the Maryland state legislature was pushing a bill that would rechristen gas-fired power as “green” and make it easier to build new gas-fired power plants in the state (see 
Yesterday, MDN told you that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a “fast-track” plan from the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection (which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV) to change how the grid operator decides which new power plants can connect to the system first (see