Study: Not Enough Equipment Ready to Comply with EPA Methane Reg
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is urging the EPA to delay implementation of parts of its proposed methane regulations (of oil and gas companies) because of equipment supply constraints. In a new study just released, oil and gas companies identified supply chain delays and challenges in buying the methane reduction equipment they would need to comply with EPA’s draft regulation on the timeline EPA proposed. The study finds current backorder times for methane reduction equipment components range from six months to more than two years. Implementing the proposed methane rule is expected to increase current backorder times by six months or more. Once again, the government is the problem, not the solution.
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New shale permits issued for Sep 11 – 17 in the Marcellus/Utica rebounded. There were 22 new permits issued last week, up from 14 issued two weeks ago. But the increase came from an unlikely source. Last week’s permit tally included 9 new permits in Pennsylvania, 1 new permit in Ohio, and 12 new permits in West Virginia. WV is typically on the low end of permits, not the high end. The top permittee for the week was Antero Resources, which received 6 permits in WV. EQT was a close second with 5 permits in WV.
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Feedgas flows from the Marcellus/Utica to the Cove Point LNG export facility located on the shore of Maryland fell to zero yesterday. It was the start of the facility’s annual maintenance outage. The question is, how long will Cove Point be out of commission for liquefying and exporting LNG? There are conflicting reports. Last year, the facility was closed from Oct. 1-27 — nearly a month! In most years, the closure lasts around three weeks (
The old Energy Harbor coal-fired power plant in Pleasants County, WV, which had been offline since June 1 and was scheduled to be demolished, recently roared back to life under new ownership (see 
In early August, MDN told you about trouble brewing along the Gulf Coast between Venture Global LNG and its biggest customers: BP, Shell, Edison International (an Italian utility company), Repsol, and GALP Energia (see 
We continue to monitor the price of natural gas, which has remained mired in the mid-$2 range for months on end. Every time it seems like it might make a run for $3, the price slides–as it did yesterday (down $0.12 to close at $2.73). We spotted two somewhat contradictory stories about the price of gas, both published by Reuters. One story is about a prediction from Bank of America, which said in a note that if we have a mild winter (as some are predicting), it’s quite possible the price of natgas will crash below $2 during the first quarter of 2024.
In April, MDN told you about a radicalized faction within the Pennsylvania Democrat Party trying yet another ploy to block all new Marcellus drilling in the state (see 
This is how lawless dictators behave. The U.S. Senate, charged with approving the people who run various governmental agencies, including the Dept. of Energy, rejected Jeff Marootian, nominated by Joe Biden to be the assistant secretary of the Dept. of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Why? Joe Manchin said Marootian wants to ban natural gas stoves by regulating them out of existence. Biden withdrew Marootian’s nomination–and then “quietly” appointed him as principal deputy assistant secretary of the EERE, where he is now the most senior person and the de facto head of the department. Lawless.
America’s natural gas and oil industry announced “a landmark partnership” in late 2017 called The Environmental Partnership to “accelerate improvements to environmental performance in operations across the country” for lowering methane emissions (see