U.S. Big Banks Drop Out of the UN’s Net Zero Banking Alliance
It’s a mass exodus of U.S. big banks leaving the awful Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of woke banks managed by the equally terrible United Nations. The NZBA is all about defunding fossil fuels. The UN apparently didn’t get the memo that the U.S. has reversed course and now supports fossil energy. Over the past month or so, the following banks have quit their membership in the NZBA: Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. They are five of the six largest banks in the U.S. Read More “U.S. Big Banks Drop Out of the UN’s Net Zero Banking Alliance”
NATIONAL: Improved efficiency is enabling record U.S. crude oil production from fewer rigs; Trump tells EU to buy more American-made oil and gas or face ‘tariffs all the way’; Ample supply, slow demand to temper oil price gains in 2025; Biden to ban more offshore oil drilling before Trump arrives; Antis launder donor-funded research through the Nat’l Academy of Sciences; INTERNATIONAL: GlobalData says digitalization could deliver long term benefits to oil, gas; Ukraine receives 1st shipment of US LNG. 
For the week of Dec 16 – 22, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica remained healthy. There were 27 new permits issued last week, up from 22 issued the week before. In something of an unusual twist, the Keystone State (PA) issued just four new permits, all of them to different drillers. PennEnergy Resources’ permit was in Beaver County; Seneca Resources’ permit was in Tioga County; and Range Resources and EQT (Rice) each had one permit in Washington County. 
This is an interesting pattern we’ve not seen in a long time for the venerable Baker Hughes rig count. The national rig count and the count for the Marcellus/Utica remained the same for multiple weeks in a row. The national count was 589 active rigs last week (now four weeks in a row). The M-U count was 34 last week (now three weeks in a row). The national count remains rangebound between 581 and 589 since June 2024 (except for Sep. 13, when it hit 590 for a single week). The M-U remained static last week, with PA at 15 rigs, OH at 9 rigs, and WV at 10 rigs. 
There was a last-minute roller coaster ride for the NYMEX “front month” natural gas price earlier this week. On Monday, the price soared to $3.936 per million British thermal units (MMBtus). It was the largest one-day dollar gain since Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, and the largest one-day percentage gain since Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. Monday’s closing price was the second-highest closing price of the year, with the highest coming the week before on Dec. 24 at $3.946 (just one penny difference). Then, on Tuesday, the last day of 2024, the price fell by 30.3 cents (7.7%) to $3.633. However, the big news for NYMEX prices in 2024 is that from the first trading day of the year (Jan. 2) to the last (Dec. 31), the price rose 44.51%. Not too shabby given the attacks natural gas suffered under the Biden administration! 
An undisclosed shale driller has asked the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to consider opening up an additional 4,360 acres of state-owned Egypt Valley Wildlife Area for shale drilling under the land. A new “nomination” for drilling was also sent to the OGLMC for 383 acres of Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area, located near Egypt Valley. Both tracts nominated for consideration are in Belmont County, OH. 
On Monday, pipeline giant Williams announced it had placed into full service the Southside Reliability Enhancement Project, an important expansion and modernization of the mighty Transco pipeline network in North Carolina and Virginia. The project adds a total of 423,400 dekatherms per day (423 MMcf/d) of fully contracted pipeline capacity, providing the ability to meet the energy needs of more than 2 million homes in the Southeastern U.S. 
In January 2024, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a plan by Catalyst Energy to convert an existing conventional gas production well on Route 646 in Cyclone (Keating Township, McKean County, PA) into a shale wastewater injection well (see 
A little over one month ago, we confirmed a rumor that we previously reported regarding EQT Corporation selling a minority stake in its newly-acquired midstream assets from Equitrans to investment firm Blackstone in return for $3.5 billion in cold, hard cash (see 
Just incredible. Not only did New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, an extremist liberal, sign a ban on using carbon dioxide to frack wells in the state at the last minute before the end of the current legislative session (see 
U.S. natural gas demand from LNG plants (the feedgas that flows to the plants) hit a new all-time record high on Tuesday, Dec. 31st, the last day of the year. Feedgas flows climbed to 15.2 billion cubic feed (Bcf) in a sign of a strong year ahead from the startup of two new gas-processing plants. Venture Global LNG’s Plaquemines plant in Louisiana and Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion in Texas recently came online (at least partially), driving feedgas flows higher. 
We wish you a Merry Christmas…and a Happy New Year! MDN will take off (i.e., no new stories posted) between Dec. 24 and New Year’s Day in observance of the holiday season. Don’t worry; we’ll keep an eye on the news, and if anything earth-shattering happens, we’ll post about it. However, we intend to take a break from writing for an entire week. We will see you again on Thursday, January 2nd.
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased three weeks ago, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589 (see 
It took a full nine months, but New York’s leftist Governor, Kathy Hochul, didn’t disappoint her radicalized base of supporters. The NY legislature (both chambers controlled by Democrats) passed a ban on “CO2 fracking” (uses carbon dioxide instead of water) back in March of this year (see 
A lawsuit that slipped by us (and is still playing out) that began in Carroll County, OH, has major ramifications for landowners and drillers across the state. The case is EAP Ohio LLC v. Sunnydale Farms LLC, et al. in which 13 oil and gas leases were executed in 2008 and 2009 in Carroll County, Ohio. The 2008 Leases contained an identical royalty clause that limited post-production deductions to three categories: transportation, compression, and/or dehydration to deliver the gas for sale. After drilling wells on those properties, EAP (Encino Energy) deducted several other items from royalties, including costs incurred for processing, treating, fuel, gathering, and trucking. The lawsuit tussles with the issue of how terms are defined and whether these “extra” categories are allowed under the lease’s language.