Australian Driller Sells US Conventional Wells, Keeps NY M-U Rights
Here’s a story that caught our attention. Empire Energy, which drills for oil and gas in Australia’s Beetaloo/McArthur basin, owns producing oil and gas assets in New York State and Pennsylvania, which cover more than 270,000 net acres. Empire’s U.S. assets have output totaling some 4.5 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas plus small amounts of associated liquids from approximately 2,400 conventional wells. Empire is selling their U.S. assets for $9.1 million to a privately owned conventional producer — PPP Future Development. The intriguing part of this story is that Empire also owns drilling rights in the Marcellus and Utica shale layers underlying the conventional wells in New York State.
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The problem-plagued Freeport LNG export plant is once again completely out of order. The plant had been mostly offline following an episode of cold temps in January (see 
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), working natural gas inventories in the U.S. ended the winter heating season (November 1–March 31) at 2,290 billion cubic feet (Bcf), which is 39% more than the previous five-year (2019–23) average. Why is there so much in inventory? Warm weather all winter led to less usage of natural gas. Couple that with high production and it’s a prescription for too much gas in inventory, which leads to (you guessed it), low prices.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Gov. Josh Shapiro attended White House state dinner; NATIONAL: EIA ups Brent oil price forecast for 2024 and 2025; Nobody cares about climate change except the grifters; U.S. crude production to decline in 2024; SEC climate rule puts us oil and gas industry, consumers at risk; INTERNATIONAL: Panama Canal warns restrictions will remain in place throughout 2024; Enverus says oil demand will not peak before 2030; ICE reports record open interest across its global natgas markets.
Once a month, the analysts at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months or so. We sometimes poke good-natured fun at the EIA because their predictions go up in one month, and in the next month, they go down, etc. What about the latest STEO dart board, published on Tuesday? EIA predicts the average spot price for natural gas will be $2.20/MMBtu in 2024. That’s down significantly (17%) from the $2.65 it predicted just two months ago in February’s report (see 
With the rapid increase in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the country, including right here in the Marcellus/Utica region, a key issue has arisen. Where does one store (sequester) all that carbon dioxide (CO2)? The answer is underground in a Class VI injection well. Class VI wells are a relatively new classification for injection wells, created by the federal EPA in 2010. Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania State Senate took the first step in establishing a framework that allows for the underground storage of CO2 in the Keystone State.
A large swath of rational-thinking people on Planet Earth reject the apocalyptic pronouncements of the left that the planet is burning to a cinder due to human activity. It’s a problem for leftist thugs who aim to control us. They try to use fear, but the threat that the planet is doomed if we don’t end the use of fossil fuels by 2050 (26 years away) is just too nebulous for most folks. That’s half a lifetime for some! So, the lefties become more shrill over time. And now, the United Nations Climate Chief, Simon Stiell, has taken it to its logical extreme. In a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London delivered yesterday, Stiell said, “We have exactly two years to save the world.”
Just over a year ago, MDN brought you the news that two lawyers, one from Public Citizen’s climate program and the other a professor at George Washington University Law School, had written a paper to be published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review that claims if there’s a NATURAL disaster, like a flood or hurricane or big snowstorm, and if people die in that event, governments and prosecutors can sue Big Oil, holding Big Oil criminally negligent for homicide (see 
In November 2022, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania), began to leak. Equitrans is the owner/operator of Rager Mountain. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
CNX Resources Corporation yesterday announced that it is nearing completion of its Kiski Water Line project in Westmoreland County, PA, which will serve the company’s local operational needs for drilling and fracking. The new water line, due to be done in June, will reduce the local impact of natural gas development (fewer truck trips), and potentially optimize regional water resources by providing additional reliable water infrastructure to area communities.
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) “temporarily” suspended the operations of four fracking waste injection wells in Athens County last September (see 
It appears that EOG Resources, with headquarters in Houston, Texas, is about to establish a regional headquarters/operation in Malvern (Carroll County), Ohio. We say “appears” because we have strong evidence, but we don’t (yet) have confirmation. EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), owns a huge 430,000+ acres of leases in the Ohio Utica. EOG calls its position the “Ohio Utica combo play” and now considers it one of the company’s “premium plays.” EOG concentrates on oil drilling in the Utica. It makes sense the company would establish a regional office in the Utica near where it drills.
In January, MDN told you about a long-closed landfill that seeks to reopen in Liberty and Pine Townships in Mercer County, PA (see