BlackRock Pitches a Fit Over Texas $8.5B Divestment Due to ESG
The State of Texas just dropped a major bombshell last week. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) pulled $8.5 billion of its investments away from BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment firm, over the state’s determination that BlackRock is engaged in a boycott of energy companies by pressuring companies to avoid the fossil fuel sector by using ESG (environment, social, governance) litmus tests (see Texas Yanks $8.5 BILLION Out of BlackRock re ESG). BlackRock is “pushing back with force,” claiming it has $320 billion in energy investments and is not hostile to Texas oil and gas. Nice try, BlackRock, but no cigar.
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For more than three years, MDN has called out the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, as nothing more than tools of Big Green. We’ve reported on many of the IEA’s fake predictions about peak demand for oil and natural gas (see 
Ever hear of August “Gus” Schumacher? No, neither had we. He’s a cross-country skier from Alaska. Apparently, he’s mildly famous for being the first American to win a gold medal in an individual race at the Junior World Ski Championships in 2020. He competed in the 30-kilometer skiathlon at the 2022 Winter Olympics. And, he won the Men’s 10-kilometer freestyle race at the 2024 Stifel Loppet Cup in Minneapolis on February 18, 2024. He’s also a brainwashed tool of the left who spouts inanities about global warming and carbon dioxide. Schumacher was completely humiliated, exposed as a fool, by U.S. Senator John Kennedy at a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week (watch the video below).
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Kraft Heinz gets $170M to decarbonize 10 food-manufacturing plants; Berkeley to repeal first U.S. natural gas ban after legal defeats; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Free gas and free money in the Permian Basin; Enbridge to form natgas supply venture connecting Permian and Gulf Coast; NATIONAL: Proof eco-extremists don’t want to fix the problem; Natgas has promise, but not perfect alternative for trucking; Renewables will destroy America’s lifestyle back to the pre-1800s; INTERNATIONAL: Houthis warn Saudi Arabia of retaliation if it backs USA attacks; French bank pulls funding for two LNG projects.
Summit Midstream Partners, LP, which owns midstream (pipeline) assets in a number of major plays across the country, including the Marcellus/Utica, announced on Friday the sale of the company’s Ohio Utica assets, including its Summit Midstream Utica, LLC subsidiary, which includes its approximately 36% interest in Ohio Gathering Company, approximately 38% interest in Ohio Condensate Company, and other wholly-owned Utica assets. The sale was made to a subsidiary of MPLX LP (i.e., MarkWest Energy) for $625 million in cash. Summit will no longer own Utica assets in Ohio, but the company WILL retain (for now) its Marcellus assets in West Virginia.
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Last week, Diversified issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update. Part of the update included an announcement that Diversified is acquiring financial partner Oaktree Capital Management’s interests in the companies’ JV assets in western Oklahoma, East Texas, and northwest Louisiana for a net purchase price of $386 million.
Over the past year or so, there has been merger mania in the upstream (drilling) sector. And it continues even now. According to major midstream (pipeline) companies speaking at last week’s CERAWeek event in Houston, TX, pipeline companies are next in line for merger mania. However, combinations in the midstream space will not follow the same path upstream has followed. There’s a big difference.
Is hydrogen energy a solution in search of a problem? That’s the question that keeps running through our heads. In a free market, customers buy products from companies that manufacture them. If a company is producing a product for which there is no demand, that company doesn’t stay in business long. According to a journalist at last week’s CERAWeek energy event in Houston, TX, one of the “hot topics” at the event was “hydrogen’s demand dilemma” — as in, the customers don’t exist to buy it.
Now we’re teaching our kids how to become eco-terrorists? In Ohio?? It seems the answer to that is YES. Ohio State University (OSU) has a geography class that teaches “the political economy of climate change and the political philosophy of climate justice.” One of the books to be used in the course is: “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” Ring any bells? There was a movie released with the same title last year (see 
Last week, the Baker Hughes rig count dropped five rigs after adding seven the week before. The count went from 629 active rigs two weeks down to 624 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 cumulatively lost one rig (in Pennsylvania) last week and now runs 42 rigs. The number of gas rigs cumulatively across the country fell to its lowest number since January 2022.
There were 16 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Mar. 11 – 17, down 3 from 19 permits issued the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits. Ohio issued 4 new permits. And West Virginia issued 3 new permits. Penn Production Group (PPG) and EOG Resources tied for most new permits with 4 each. PPG received 4 permits to drill in Clearfield County, PA. EOG received 4 permits to drill in Harrison County, OH. Coterra Energy received 3 permits to drill in Susquehanna County, PA. Antero got 2 permits for Ritchie County, WV. Southwestern Energy and Chesapeake Energy each received a single permit to drill in Bradford County, PA. EQT received a single permit for Wetzel County, WV.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a letter to the Shell ethane cracker plant on Feb. 22 essentially saying, “You’re time is up.” The cracker plant facility has 120 days from Feb. 22 (until Jun. 21) to file for a federal Title V Operating Permit for air emissions. If the facility doesn’t at least file for the permit, it’s lights out until it does.
Epsilon Energy issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update yesterday. Epsilon, a relatively small company, used to concentrate most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells. However, over the past couple of years, the company has expanded into other plays and now owns assets in the Anadarko (Oklahoma and Texas) and the Permian (Texas and New Mexico). Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy (in the Marcellus), and the other company does the drilling. In the Marcellus, Epsilon participated in the drilling of 7 gross (0.74 net) and completion of 2 gross (0.02 net) Marcellus wells in 2023. The completed wells went into production in January 2023. At the end of last year, the company had 1 gross (0.01 net) well being drilled and 6 gross (0.73 net) wells waiting on completion in Pennsylvania.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is shopping for a public relations firm that can help the agency convince gullible New Yorkers that they’re better off paying more money for unreliable renewable energy than they are in using fossil fuels like natural gas. NYSERDA is offering $500,000 for a one-year contract to help the agency tout its wide-ranging push to phase out gas cars in favor of electric vehicles, dump gas-heated homes in favor of electric heat, and eliminate fossil-fuel power generation in favor of solar and wind. While they’re at it, maybe they can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn, too.