Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Feb 20, 2024
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: New York doubles down on war on gas appliances; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Another green vehicle pipe dream explodes; NATIONAL: NY’s $260B pension fund is dropping Exxon, others; Record production means energy and economic security; PA Dems vote against bill to override Biden’s LNG export shutdown; Wall Street warming to Big Shale after $250 billion of deals; Rockland targets gas-fired backup power plants with new $700M fund; Biden’s war on domestic energy intensifies; Big Climate tries to censor opponents; INTERNATIONAL: European Commission allots $7.4B for hydrogen infrastructure; Houthi strikes force crew to abandon ship for first time; IEW organizer says it respects right to peaceful protest.
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Believe it or not, today is a New York Stock Exchange (i.e., bank) holiday. MDN rarely takes a day off, so we tend to track with those holidays observed by the NYSE. Have no fear; we are monitoring the news, and if anything earth-shattering happens, we’ll bring you the latest. Otherwise, look for a full-strength MDN to return tomorrow.
There were 19 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Feb. 5 – 11, versus 20 permits issued the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits last week. Ohio issued 4 new permits. West Virginia issued 2 new permits last week. Range Resources scored the most new permits with 5 split between Allegheny and Beaver counties in PA. Chesapeake Energy received 4 permits in Bradford County, PA. Seneca Resources received 4 permits in Elk County, PA. Encino Energy received 4 permits in Guernsey County, OH. And Diversified Energy received 2 permits in Harrison County, WV.
Antero Resources, which is 100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica with over 500,000 net acres under lease (and the largest M-U driller in West Virginia), issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update yesterday. The company reports net production averaged 3.4 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) during 4Q23, an increase of 6% year-over-year. Production for the full year 2023 averaged 3.4 Bcfe/d as well. Of the company’s 2023 production, liquids (NGLs) averaged 193 thousand barrels per day (MBbl/d), an increase of 14% from 2022. Natural gas production averaged 2.2 Bcf/d, up 2% from 2022. The company made $95 million in 4Q23 versus a profit of $730 million in 4Q22 — down a big 87% year over year. For 2023, Antero made $243 million versus $1.9 billion in 2022, down 87% year over year.
It feels like the NYMEX Henry Hub futures price for natural gas is in a free fall, heading for $1.50/MMBtu or (gasp) maybe even lower. Yesterday, the NYMEX price for the front month closed at $1.58/MMBtu. The price has been down for eight trading days in a row and is at the lowest price since June 26, 2020 — roughly 45 months. Year-to-date (45 days), the price is down 93.30 cents, or 37%. The national average for spot prices, a metric monitored by NGI, was down 6 cents yesterday to $1.60/MMBtu. Jeesh!
ProFrac Holding Corp. is an oilfield service company (OFS) providing well-stimulation services, proppants production, and other complementary products and services to oil and gas companies engaged in the exploration and production (E&P) of unconventional oil and natural gas resources throughout the United States. In other words, ProFrac is a fracker-for-hire. The company has its own subsidiary to provide frac sand called Alpine Silica Holding, LLC. Yesterday, ProFrac, a public company, announced its plans to spin the Alpine subsidiary into its own public company with an initial public offering (IPO).
In December 2019, New York Attorney General Tish James and her highly-paid associates were thoroughly, completely, 100% humiliated in court when their case against Exxon Mobil, accusing the company of screwing shareholders by keeping secret knowledge they are toasting Mom Earth, was itself toast (see 
Plugging and capping old wells has been in the news a lot lately. The left claims old oil and gas wells are partially responsible for toasting Mom Earth. Bunkum (see our companion story today about the EDF/Google satellite). But, let’s be honest, it’s better to cap old wells than to have them belching methane for years and years. Amid the confusion surrounding this issue is a claim that even plugged wells can and do continue to leak significant quantities of methane. A new study from a British university lays that baseless claim to rest.
EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica) released its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update yesterday. According to CEO Toby Rice, 2023 was a big year for the company which “set multiple drilling world records” and achieved its highest completion efficiency pace ever. Last year, EQT closed on the purchase of Tug Hill and XcL Midstream, adding major assets to the company’s portfolio. In 2023, EQT signed 2.5 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG export agreements to export roughly 5% of EQT’s total natural gas production. The company produced 2,016 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) in 2023, which works out as 5.52 Bcfe per day. As for 2024, Rice says his company is ready and quite willing to throttle back on production and do less drilling than previously planned…if the price of natural gas stays low.
Earlier this week, MDN reported on a bill making its way through West Virginia’s legislative sausage-making process (see 
From time to time, we bring you news of the latest merger and acquisition (M&A) deals happening, especially the deals that impact the Marcellus/Utica. Often, we don’t highlight large M&A deals if they are exclusively between companies operating in other shale plays and regions. One of those deals we ignored was announced on Monday, a proposed merger between publicly-traded Diamondback Energy, which wants to buy privately held Endeavor Energy Resources for $26 billion. Both companies operate in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. The question floating around the O&G space is, who’s left to buy and merge after all of the M&As happening over the past year or so? It’s a pretty short list. One of the companies on that list (with significant Permian acreage, in addition to Marcellus acreage) is Coterra Energy.
So-called “charities” (really nothing of the sort) controlled by Rockefeller family billionaires and charities controlled by billionaire Mike Bloomberg provided millions of dollars in recent years to environmental groups that are campaigning against fossil-fuel projects, including LNG terminals that have been proposed on the Gulf Coast, according to insiders. So says an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal. Frankly, we’re not surprised. Nobody should be surprised that billionaire Democrats are funding these anti-fossil fuel crusades. What everyone SHOULD be surprised by is that the billionaires’ charities are tax-exempt and that they are funding tax-exempt nonprofits to engage in overtly political activities — activities that violate the IRS tax code for nonprofits. Why are ANY of the participants in this scheme tax-exempt?
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is coming on strong everywhere, including the Marcellus/Utica. Two days ago, we told you that Tenaska is looking to lease 80,000 acres in the M-U for CCS (see