Hope Gas Continues to Expand – Seeks to Buy 2 Small WV Utilities
Hope Gas provides natural gas service to approximately 131,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in thirty-five West Virginia counties. In October, Hope closed on acquiring the West Virginia division of Peoples Gas for an undisclosed amount, giving the company another 13,000 customers (see Hope Gas Closes Acquisition of Peoples Gas WV – Adds 13K Customers). The company also closed on a deal to buy Southern Public Service Company with another 6,400 customers across six WV counties in December (see WV’s Hope Gas Buys Southern Public, Adds 6,400 Customers). Hope is growing yet again…
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Earlier this week, MDN told you about proposed new IRS rules coming from the White House (the 45V tax credit) that will favor solar and wind use in generating so-called green hydrogen, and disfavor (make more expensive) hydrogen produced using natural gas (see 
Riddle us this: In 2023, the rig count for all oil and gas rigs was 20% fewer active rigs than in 2022 (see 
A new article by Gordon Tomb — a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based, free-market think tank, and senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia — has the intriguing title: “Are ‘green’ agendas carrying governors to political cliffs?” While the article focuses on recent actions by PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon in pandering to the radical environmental movement, much of the article reviews the evidence that a majority of people across multiple countries are beginning to reject radical environmentalism by electing conservatives. The radicals swung the pendulum way too far and too fast, and now the pendulum is swinging back to sanity.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Trinity constructing first greenfield gas storage project in many years; NATIONAL: U.S. natgas producers seek to balance production cuts, demand rebound; High court ruling in ‘Chevron deference’ challenge could upend energy regs; Wall Street is already cutting oil-price forecasts for this year; INTERNATIONAL: Events in Red Sea have escalated.
In October 2020, a law firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Cabot Oil & Gas shareholders against Cabot (now Coterra Energy), claiming the company “had inadequate environmental controls and procedures and/or failed to properly mitigate known issues related to those controls and procedures,” and that the company “failed to fix faulty gas wells which polluted Pennsylvania’s water supplies through stray gas migration,” and that the company, in general, hid all of this from the public — namely from investors (see 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is out with official numbers for 2023 concerning the price of natural gas traded at the benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana. The Henry Hub natural gas price averaged $2.57 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2023, about a 62% drop from the 2022 average annual price. Bear in mind Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, sending the natural gas market into a steep climb due to worries that Europe would run out of gas if Putin decided to cut them off.
Welcome to Paradise, where natural gas is the fuel of choice to generate electricity! In 2017, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) held a dedication ceremony for the Paradise Combined Cycle Gas Plant in Drakesboro, Kentucky (see 
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Wow! That was fast! On Dec. 27, pipeline giant Williams issued a press release to announce a deal to buy six underground natural gas storage facilities located in Louisiana and Mississippi with a total capacity of 115 billion cubic feet (Bcf), as well as 230 miles of gas transmission pipeline and 30 pipeline interconnects, for $1.95 billion. Some of the interconnections connect to the Williams Transco pipeline system, a huge system that transports Marcellus/Utica gas to the Gulf Coast area. One of the big reasons for the deal, according to Williams, is to connect more gas supplies to LNG export markets. Yesterday, Williams issued a second press release to say the deal is already done! Williams now owns the assets.
Shell, one of the contracted customers to receive LNG from Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility, added its voice to BP’s request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to release documents from Venture Global related to an ongoing delay in making the plant commercial. The Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility recently received FERC authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service (see 
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