MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Governor Josh Shapiro “ain’t got sh*t done”; PA Utility regulators file complaint against natgas utility in fatal 2021 blast; NATIONAL: Natural gas continues to look at $2; Oil falls to 7-week low in on demand fears; Legal challenges to the SEC’s climate-related disclosures rule; Senate’s energy permitting reform gains broad industry support.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 30, 2024”
Last week, CNX Resources issued its second quarter 2024 update. The company lost $18.3 million in 2Q24, compared with making a profit of $475 million in 2Q23. This is quite a whack due to the low price of natural gas. Production was 134.0 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in 2Q24 — which works out to 1.47 Bcfe/d — down from 134.2 Bcfe last year (statistically the same). On the bright side, management was excited about the early results of two deep Utica gas wells that were brought online last quarter.
Read More “CNX Drilled 8 Marcellus, Turned to Sales 2 Utica Wells in 2Q24”
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) slapped the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project (which is now online) with a fine of $30,500 for violations of erosion and sediment control rules that happened during the second quarter. It is the fourth consecutive quarter in which MVP was fined by the DEQ for violations. In total, MVP has been fined nearly $100,000 by the DEQ over the past one year. Which is pretty much a nothingburger.
Read More “Virginia Fines MVP Another Piddly $30K for Erosion Violations”
The Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline (owned by Enbridge) transports up to 3.09 Bcf/d through 1,131 miles of pipeline. Algonquin connects to Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO), Millennium Pipeline, and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and supplies New England with critically needed natural gas supplies for power generation and consumer use. Much of the gas flowing through it comes from the Marcellus/Utica. Algonquin needs to install a backup “meter and regulator” station in Lincoln, Mass., to keep the gas flowing in the region. The city of Cambridge owns a piece of land that it uses as a “buffer” for the city-owned reservoir in the area. Algonquin needs to cut some of the trees on that land in order to get its equipment through for the meter and regulator station, which will be constructed on land owned by Algonquin. Enter several nutjobs who are trying to block work at the site.
Read More “Mass. Radicals Arrested at Algonquin Pipe Meter Station Site”
All the way back in February 2020 BC (Before COVID), we told you that EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the country, was looking to lease most of its mammoth downtown Pittsburgh headquarters building at 625 Liberty Avenue (see EQT Subleasing Most of its Downtown Pittsburgh Office Building). The building has been known for years as EQT Plaza. No more. While we speculated in 2020 that the company would completely leave the building in 2024 at the end of its lease, EQT is going to keep a small presence in the building and retain it as “the headquarters” of the company (although almost nobody works there anymore).
Read More “EQT Name Removed from Downtown Pittsburgh Building, HQ Remains”
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).
Read More “Companies Argue Over Who Can Supply NatGas to WV Hydrogen Plant”
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 Freeport LNG Full Restart Delayed Until August, Says Source). But just like that, Reuters is now reporting the facility is pulling in a full 2 Bcf/d of gas to liquefy and load.
Read More “Freeport LNG Returns to Full Production After Outage Since July 7”
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.
Read More “National Rig Count Up Again: U.S. Adds 3 @ 589, M-U Even @ 37”
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.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 29, 2024”
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.
Read More “14 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jul 15 – 21”
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.
Read More “Range Sees Slight Bump in Production in 2Q, Net Income Down 5%”
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.
Read More “CNX Makes CNG at the Well Pad Using No 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 PA Gov. Shapiro Gets $396 Million in Bribes from Biden-Harris EPA). Shapiro’s factotum at the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley, is making it clear the money is there for companies (many in the western part of the state) that (a) use union labor and (b) have plants or will build plants in communities of color and low economic status.
Read More “PA Gov. Wastes No Time in Distributing $396M of Bribes to Cos.”
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 EPA Rolls Out Final Regs Attacking Coal & Gas-Fired Power). Using 1,020 pages of new regulations, which will go into effect this year, all coal-fired plants that are slated to remain operational in the long term and all new gas-fired power plants will be required to control (capture) 90% of their carbon emissions using expensive and unproven technology. Translation: New gas-fired plants won’t get built, and most, if not all, coal plants will shutter, with the result that electricity will, by necessity, be rationed (see WSJ Calls Biden EPA Power Plant Regs a Plan to “Ration Electricity”). Twenty-five state Attornies General, led by West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to invalidate the EPA’s new finalized power plant regulation (see 25 States Led by WV Ask DC Circuit to Overturn EPA Power Plant Reg). The DC Circuit declined to do so, allowing the onerous rules to stand.
Read More “25 AGs Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Stay New EPA Power Plant Rule”
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.
Read More “Petrified Left Rushes to Defend Harris’ Anti-Fracking Statements”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Who is EQT CEO Toby Rice voting for, for President?; Cameron County water well contaminated by wastewater pipeline; NATIONAL: Natgas electric generation in U.S. spiked with July heatwave; Breaking wind; INTERNATIONAL: What is likely to happen at next OPEC+ meeting?
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Fri, Jul 26, 2024”