Electrical Generation | Hydrogen | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Pleasants County | West Virginia
Companies Argue Over Who Can Supply NatGas to WV Hydrogen Plant
Hope Gas, West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility company, and Quantum Pleasants, which is working on a plan in Pleasants County, WV, to use natural gas to produce hydrogen for electricity generation at what is currently a coal-burning plant, are squabbling before the state Public Service Commission (PSC) over whether or not Quantum Pleasants has the right to buy its natural gas from a different vendor (with a different pipeline).
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We need a scorecard to keep track of all the ups and downs at the problem-plagued Freeport LNG export facility. We don’t think it’s a stretch to say the plant, which is the second largest LNG export plant in the U.S., has been down as much as it has been up over the past two years of its short existence. Just last Thursday, Reuters reported full operations at the plant (all three “trains”) would not be fully online again until “early August” following Hurricane Beryl visiting the area (see 
The U.S. national oil and gas rig regained more of its lost ground last week by adding three more rigs back to active status. The national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count now stands at 589 rigs. The Marcellus/Utica remained even last week. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio operated 11 active rigs (after adding a rig two weeks ago). West Virginia remained the same with five active rigs. The M-U’s primary competitor, the Haynesville, remained static with 36 active rigs — one less than the M-U’s 37 rigs.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: GOP Senate candidate in PA tours natural gas plant; NATIONAL: Harris backs off fracking ban as GOP exposes her radicalism; What do oil and gas companies look for when hiring?; INTERNATIONAL: USA replaces Africa as global oil swing supplier.
For the week of July 15 – 21, a total of 14 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania issued six new permits, split two each for INR, Chesapeake Energy, and Olympus Energy. Ohio issued eight new permits, all of them to Encino Energy split between two counties. West Virginia issued no new permits last week.
Range Resources Corporation, the very first company to drill a shale well targeting the Marcellus Shale layer in Pennsylvania (in 2004), issued its second quarter 2024 update earlier this week. Range continues to hold its production relatively flat. During 2Q, Range produced 2.15 Bcfe/d (billion cubic feet equivalent per day), with approximately 69% of production comprised of natural gas and the rest in NGLs and oil. Range’s 2Q24 production is up 3% from 2Q23, but essentially flat from 1Q24 (2.14 Bcfe/d). Steady as she goes. Net income was $28.7 million, down 5% from the same quarter last year.
CNX Resources issued its second quarter update yesterday. MDN will do a deeper dive into the update on Monday. Today, we want to highlight one item “tucked away” in the report that was first noticed by the Pittsburgh Business Times. CNX has a New Technologies Group dedicated to growing the use of natural gas outside of the typical extract-it-and-sell-it-via-pipeline model. In yesterday’s update, CNX said it had sold what it calls ZeroHp CNG to an outside company in July — making CNG (compressed natural gas) right at the well pad without the use of compressors.
Yeah, well, that didn’t take long. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro (left-wing Democrat) held a rally with Biden’s EPA chief Michael Regan in Pittsburgh to tout a big old pot of money, $396 million, coming from the feds to PA to essentially buy votes (see 
The Bidenistas at the EPA attacked coal and gas-fired power plants in April, threatening to destabilize the existing electric power grid with new regulations (see 
Real journalism in the U.S. is dead. You know that, right? Once objective and venerable publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, and other mainstream media publications are now nothing more than the public relations arm of the Democrat Party. Their “reporters” don’t report, they spin. They lie. They obfuscate. A case in point is an article by the Bloomberg news service. Kamala Harris is on record (on video) saying she is in favor of a full-on, 100% ban on all fracking in the country. Not just fracking on government land (which was Joementia’s position), but a ban for everyone everywhere. Republicans are now reminding people of her statements and position on this issue, so Bloomberg is covering for Ms. Harris.
Yesterday, EQT Corporation, the country’s largest natural gas producer, issued its second quarter 2024 update. We’re dedicating another post to chronicling other news coming from the update. This post is dedicated to the most significant news from the update: EQT has decided to keep the newly christened 2.0 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) instead of selling it. Not only that, but EQT wants to expand the pipeline’s capacity from 2.0 to 2.5 Bcf/d as soon as possible.
MDN’s lead story today is that EQT Corporation has decided to retain majority ownership in Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and expand the pipe’s capacity with compressors asap (see EQT’s Game Plan Changed – Keep MVP & Expand Extra 0.5 Bcf/d). This post deals with the other (big) news coming from yesterday’s second quarter 2024 update. Namely, EQT is looking to sell the rest of its non-operated assets in the northeastern Pennsylvania Marcellus. In addition, we learned that EQT is still curtailing (limiting) production through the second half of 2024.
Yeah, we kind of felt like it was too good to be true. Tuesday, we told you that an LNG carrier had left Freeport LNG’s port last weekend fully loaded, and a couple of carriers were queued up, waiting to dock and load (see 
According to the left-leaning Spotlight PA, “A flurry of recent bipartisan agreements by state lawmakers on energy projects and policies is sending a clear message: Pennsylvania is slowly moving toward clean energy but fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere.” Joe Biden is sending big money to Pennsylvania to fund all sorts of ludicrous “renewable” energy initiatives (i.e., bribes). However, sources talking to Spotlight PA confirm that fossil fuels — the Marcellus industry — remain strong and are not going anywhere.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see