Get Up to Speed on ARCH2 at Appalachian Hydrogen & CCS Conference
As you know, the Bidenistas recently announced seven winners of the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games contest (see Hydrogen Hub Winners Announced – WV Takes Prize in M-U Region). The West Virginia-led Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), a project that will use Marcellus/Utica natural gas as the feedstock to produce “blue” hydrogen, was one of the seven winners (scoring $925 million). Cool! If you want to know more about what’s coming with ARCH2 and in the hydrogen (and carbon capture) space in general, there’s one place to be on November 30: The Appalachian Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Conference V, being held at the Hilton Garden Inn Southpointe/Pittsburgh.
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The International Gas Union (IGU), Snam, and Rystad Energy partnered to produce and release the 2023 Global Gas Report (GGR) at last week’s Energy Intelligence Forum in London. The GGR (full copy below) says, rather bluntly, that the unprecedented demand uncertainty and insufficient investment in natural gas, low-carbon, and renewable gases are putting the so-called energy transition at risk, undermining energy affordability, security, and sustainability. The report is meant to be a kick in the seat of the pants, to wake the world up to the fact that we need MORE natural gas, not less.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Wells Fargo ousted from Texas muni deal; NATIONAL: Investigation into Haaland grows re ties to left-wing eco group; Hess family stake valued at $5B with Chevron takeover; Why the Rockefellers are spending their oil fortune to end fossil fuels; INTERNATIONAL: EU on track to quit Russian fossil fuels.
Not even a full two weeks ago, MDN brought you the news that Exxon Mobil, the #5 oil producer in the Permian Basin, is buying Pioneer Natural Resources, the #1 oil producer in the Permian, in an all-stock deal valued at $59.5 billion, plus assuming $5 billion in debt, for a total deal value of $64.5 billion (see 
The Big Green group Save Ohio Parks is trying to block legally permitted and state-encouraged drilling under some of Ohio’s state-owned lands, including shale drilling under (not on) state parks. Save Ohio Parks recently tried to prove shale drilling is a problem in the Buckeye State by using data from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR). In a funny turnabout, the group actually proves the opposite — that shale drilling is super safe and not harming the environment in Ohio.
The U.S. rig count rose last week for the second week in a row, albeit just slightly. The national rig count added a piddly two rigs for 624 active rigs. We remain near the lowest point of active rigs running since February 2022. It feels like a dead cat bounce to us. The count in the Marcellus/Utica, after gaining one rig two weeks ago (in Pennsylvania), remained steady at 39 active rigs last week. The M-U’s biggest competitor, the Haynesville, added three rigs last week and now sports 40 active rigs, one more than the M-U. Darnit!
On Friday, Range Resources Corporation, the very first driller to sink a Marcellus Shale well (in Pennsylvania) back in 2004, announced it had appointed a new member to its Board of Directors — Charles G. Griffie. Mr. Griffie has an extensive background in the oil and gas industry with expertise in managing midstream assets. Among his previous positions, Griffie did a 2.5-year stint as Senior Vice President of Midstream and Marketing for Huntley & Huntley Energy Exploration (now called Olympus Energy).
A very small but mouthy group of legislators, doctors and faux “scientists” is pressuring the weak-willed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to pass the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition Act, just months after Hochul’s controversial move to ban gas stoves, furnaces and propane heating in new residential buildings in the Empire State (see 
A Susquehanna County, PA judge recently ruled against fractivist lawyers looking for a quick payday in a “Dimock” case stretching back to 2017. In a damning decision against the lawyers, the judge said they repeatedly refused to provide documents in the case even though ordered to by the judge. Not only that, but the lawyers destroyed evidence! They destroyed computers with emails and documents, and even destroyed hard-copy documents, to avoid handing them over to the court. Next up is a trial to determine how much the plaintiff (Coterra Energy) will receive after being wronged by these fractivist lawyers.
On Wednesday, MDN pointed out that a New York-based company will play a key role in (and get gobs of money from) the WV hydrogen hub project (see 
The United States will add 8.6 gigawatts (GW) of natural gas-fired electric generating capacity in 2023, more than the gas-fired additions in 2022 and 2021, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday. So far, in 2023, 10 natural gas-fired power plants have come online with 6.8 GW of new capacity. Another six plants are due to come online by the end of this year, adding another 1.8 GW of new capacity. The EIA expects 20 new natural gas-fired power plants to come online in the next two years, in 2024 and 2025, with another 7.7 GW of new capacity.
We got quite a charge out of this story. It seems the oil and gas industry in building new pipelines isn’t the only group that has grown weary of so-called environmental activists — those who break the law and trespass to block new construction. A group of nuns in Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier in southern France has been trying to build a new facility that will seat 3,500 people (in a small town with 400 people) since 2018. So-called environmentalists have tried their best to block the project, claiming certain endangered species will be sacrificed in the process. Construction of the project recently restarted, so enviros tried trespassing on the property to block construction. One enviro-jerk tried it, and he got tackled (yes, tackled) to the ground by a nun!