US Edges Out Australia and Qatar as World’s Biggest LNG Exporter
Back on Jan. 3, we brought you the news (from Reuters) that the U.S. became the #1 exporter of LNG in the world in 2023 (see U.S. Became #1 LNG Exporter in the World in 2023). It only took the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) another three months, but the agency, which employs an army of number-crunchers, now agrees. U.S. LNG exports in 2023 averaged 11.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) — a 12% increase (1.3 Bcf/d) compared with 2022, according to data from EIA’s Natural Gas Monthly report. LNG exports from Australia and Qatar — the world’s two other largest LNG exporters — each ranged from 10.1 Bcf/d to 10.5 Bcf/d annually between 2020 and 2023.
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It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while, academic researchers do real, actual, in-the-field research, as opposed to running computer simulations. Such an act of real research was just published in the journal Science last Thursday. A research group led by Carbon Mapper, with researchers from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Scientific Aviation, and the Environmental Protection Agency used advanced aircraft to conduct the largest direct measurement-based survey of active municipal solid waste landfills to date from 2018 through 2022, looking for fugitive methane emissions. They found that 52% of surveyed landfills had “observable point source emissions” (i.e, they are super-emitters), as compared with a 0.2% to 1% detection rate observed for super-emitters from surveyed oil and gas infrastructure in California and the Permian Basin.
NATIONAL: Johnson’s natural gas-for-Ukraine gamble might not pay off; US March LNG exports flat as Freeport plant woes continue; INTERNATIONAL: QatarEnergy now has over 100 LNG ships under construction; USA oil suppliers muscling into OPEC+ markets all over the world; Canada gets another black eye on LNG; IEA raises its oil demand forecast for 2024—for the fourth time.
There was a pretty dismal showing for new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Mar. 18 – 24, with a drop of 11 permits from the prior week to just 5 new permits issued. Pennsylvania issued all 5 of the new permits. Ohio and West Virginia both issued no new permits during that week. EQT (Rice Drilling) was issued 2 new permits in Greene County. Blackhill Energy and Chesapeake Energy each received 1 new permit to drill in Bradford County. And Range Resources was issued 1 new permit to drill in Washington County.
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The project was repeatedly delayed by the radicals of the Andrew Cuomo (now Kathy Hochul) administrations in NY. NFG still wants to build the project but needs more time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done in a decision in June 2022. The Sierra Club challenged FERC’s time extension. On Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit) rejected the Clubbers and said FERC properly extended the time to build the project.
Oil production in the Ohio Utica hit a record 27.8 million barrels in 2023, up 41% from 2022, according to researchers at the Levin College of Public Affairs and Education at Cleveland State University. In December, eastern Ohio oil wells pumped 93,000 barrels of crude, up one-third from December 2022, according to federal data. Oil has been locked away in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale layer for millennia. Aubrey McClendon, co-founder and former CEO of Chesapeake Energy, was the first to see the vision of freeing oil from the Utica. However, it was a successor company, Encino Energy, that figured out how to coax large quantities of oil out of the Utica shale.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, in mid-March to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program (see 
An article appears today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette detailing how some people already are (or are planning to) make money from plugging orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere). It involves the same old cockamamie scam of carbon tax credits. The rough outline is this: Companies measure how much methane is currently leaking from a well. Then they fix it (presumably using government money to at least help pay for plugging), and once it’s fixed, they issue/create a carbon tax credit (or token) that someone else can buy on a public marketplace. Why buy it? So that person or company or entity can keep right on “polluting” — the carbon credit will “offset” their pollution. What a scam!
Last week, the Baker Hughes rig count dropped another three rigs after dropping five the week before. The count went from 624 active rigs two weeks ago down to 621 last week. The national count is officially rangebound. Since last October, the national count has gone as low as 616 and as high as 629. And that’s it. No higher and no lower. The Marcellus/Utica remained the same last week at 42 active rigs. No rigs moved around within the three M-U states. Pennsylvania kept 21 active rigs, Ohio had 12 rigs, and West Virginia ran 9 rigs.
As we have in previous years, MDN will not publish today (Friday) in observance of Good Friday and the Easter holiday. We hope you enjoy this blessed time of year!
Yesterday, MDN reported that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took legal action on Monday, seeking to force Austin Master Services (AMS) in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), OH, to correct “egregious violations of Ohio law” regarding the storage of oil and gas waste that he says threatens the Ohio River and Martins Ferry’s drinking water supply (see 
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the seemingly moribund effort to drill shale wells on land located in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF) is active once again. WNF is a patchwork of public and private mineral rights that covers over a quarter million acres of Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. For years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) blocked new permits and drilling in WNF. During the Trump administration, the BLM began to auction off federal leases and permits (
According to the data geeks at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. natural gas production grew by 4% in 2023, which was similar to the growth in 2022. U.S. gas production in 2023 averaged a whopping 125.0 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). In 2023, more natural gas was produced in the Appalachia (Marcellus/Utica) region of the Northeast than in any other U.S. region, accounting for 29%, or 37.7 Bcf/d, of gross natural gas production. However, production growth in Appalachia slowed because our region doesn’t have enough pipeline takeaway capacity to transport more natural gas out of the region to the markets that would buy it.