NJ Considers Constitutional Amendment to Ban New NatGas Power Plants
Natural gas-fired power plants in the Garden State of New Jersey provide roughly half of the electricity used by NJ residents. Yet NJ’s Democrat politicians are proposing to put a measure on the fall ballot to amend the state’s constitution to make it illegal to build any new gas-fired power plants in the state. Can you believe it? Are they stark…raving…mad? They might as well say they’re going to ban electricity!
Read More “NJ Considers Constitutional Amendment to Ban New NatGas Power Plants”
Last week, MDN told you about a “clerical error” by a third-party vendor in calculating the new formula for natural gas property tax valuations in West Virginia that caused newly producing natural gas wells to be undervalued, leading to the loss of millions of dollars for the counties that see the most shale drilling (see 
In line with our theory that we have hit the bottom of the rig count and now bounce up a few and down a few, last week, the Baker Hughes rig count lost rigs. The count went from 621 active rigs two weeks ago to 619 last week — down two rigs. It went up a single rig the week prior. We’re just sitting and bouncing, staying roughly even at around 620 active rigs. The Marcellus/Utica remained constant last week with 42 active rigs. However, our rival, the Haynesville, lost two rigs and now sits at 40 active rigs. Yes! We have two more rigs than our competition!
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Biden’s big worries in one small state; Williams acquires gas storage near the heart of LNG export demand; NATIONAL: Exxon, Chevron surpass forecasts as shale drilling lifts output; What White House Isn’t Saying about LNG export pause; Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels is hurting America; INTERNATIONAL: Oil market sees temporary fragmentation amid Red Sea dangers.
There were 27 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 22 – 28, versus 20 permits issued during the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 19 new permits last week. Ohio issued 5 new permits. West Virginia issued 3 new permits last week. Olympus Energy scored the most new permits with 7, all of them in Westmoreland County, PA. Apex Energy came in second with 6 new permits, also in Westmoreland. In fact, Westmoreland County, in southwestern PA, received 15 new permits last week, by far the most of any county.
Yesterday, Shell’s new CEO, Wael Sawan, spilled some major beans about the company’s ethane cracker in Monaca (Beaver County), Pennsylvania. Sawan’s comments about the cracker came during a quarterly conference call with analysts to discuss the company’s performance during the fourth quarter of 2023. Until yesterday, Shell had steadfastly declined to disclose how much money it spent to build the Monaca ethane cracker facility. Sawan said yesterday the number was a massive $14 billion, far more than the estimated $6-$10 billion that had been bandied about for years.
Hopefully, we’re near the end of an effort to overturn a bill passed in early 2022 by the West Virginia legislature, Senate Bill (SB) 694, which finally brought forced pooling for shale wells to the Mountain State after eight years of trying (see 
Well, this was predictable. In fact, we predicted it! We’re talking about today’s announcement that radicalized left Democrat members of the New York legislature, including Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo (from Endicott) and Senator Lea Webb (from Binghamton), are introducing a bill to ban so-called CO2 fracking in the state. A group of leftist Democrats were joined this morning by movie star Mark Ruffalo (a really dumb person) to announce the bill to ban all forms of fracking in the Empire State.
On Monday, we told you the mayor of Chester, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia), Stefan Roots, boldly proclaimed that an LNG export project planned for his community called Penn LNG is “dead in the water” (see 
We’ve talked plenty in recent months about the problems in the Red Sea with Iran’s puppets, the Houthis, trying to hijack ships, and (lately) lobbing bombs at ships sailing through the region. Those ships include LNG (liquefied natural gas) and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, or propane) carriers. The result is predictable: Ships have stopped using the Red Sea and the Suez Canal that connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
Equitrans, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project, is more than just a one-trick (one pipeline) pony. Equitrans owns 940 miles of FERC-regulated, interstate pipelines that have interconnect points to seven interstate pipelines and multiple local distribution companies (LDCs). The transmission and storage system is supported by 43 compressor units, with total throughput capacity of approximately 4.4 Bcf per day and compression of approximately 136,000 horsepower, and 18 natural gas storage reservoirs, which have a peak withdrawal capacity of approximately 820 million cubic feet (MMcf) per day and a working gas capacity of approximately 43 Bcf. Two of Equitrans’ 18 storage reservoirs — Hunters Cave and Swarts, both in Greene County, PA — are getting a makeover.
