Hope Gas Closes Acquisition of Peoples Gas WV – Adds 13K Customers
Hope Gas, a Local Distribution Company (LDC), otherwise known as a utility company, provides gas service to approximately 112,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in thirty-five West Virginia counties. In January, Hope announced it was buying the West Virginia division of Peoples Gas, currently owned by Essential Utilities, for an undisclosed amount (see Hope Gas Cuts Deal to Buy Peoples Gas of West Virginia). The deal will add another 13,000 customers to Hope’s customer base. The Hope/Peoples deal finally closed yesterday.
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U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasters are predicting a sharp drop in natural gas demand in the power sector in the coming decades based on an expectation that unreliable renewables will add tremendous new capacity build-out and will accelerate and displace other sources. However, EIA’s forecasts over the past decade have “consistently and severely” underestimated gas burn for power. The sharp analysts at RBN Energy have done a deep dive into the pitfalls of forecasting gas consumption in a world often focused on pushing a renewables-heavy generation stack.
U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) fell, albeit modestly, in September from August as scattered outages at four gas-processing plants led to lower shipments. A total of 7.12 million metric tons of LNG left U.S. ports in September, down from the 7.32 million metric tons exported in August, according to data from LSEG vessel tracking. That’s down just 2.7%. Maintenance outages were at Freeport, Sabine Pass, Corpus Christi, and Cove Point. In fact, Cove Point is still down for maintenance.
Although we have a companion story from today’s lineup that criticizes the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for its powers to predict the future (see EIA Consistently Underestimates NatGas Needed for Power Generation), the EIA is unparalleled in its tracking and reporting of historical energy data. The expert number crunchers of the EIA recently turned their eyes on U.S. petroleum exports and found that these types of exports (including NGLs) set a new record high in the first half of 2023.
We spotted the following headline for an S&P Global Commodity Insights story: “Closed LNG arbitrage endangers winter supply to Asia.” What the heck is LNG arbitrage, why is it “closed,” and how is that endangering LNG shipments to Asia? Those were the answers we went seeking by reading the S&P article. And, is there a connection to LNG exports coming from the U.S.?
NATIONAL: Giant gas-to-methanol machines could curb methane emissions; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC’s oil production grows for a second month despite Saudi cut; Southeast Asia is set to drive up demand for natural gas.
Waco Oil & Gas Co., Inc., headquartered in Glenville (Gilmer County), WV, signed a proposed consent decree (settlement agreement) with the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to settle an “alleged” charge of violating the federal Clean Water Act and West Virginia state law for “unauthorized discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States in Braxton County, West Virginia.” Waco will pay a $825,000 penalty — split evenly between the feds and WV. Waco will also pay big bucks to restore “the vast majority of the impacted waters” and to provide “compensatory mitigation for waters that cannot be restored.” No doubt the bill will far exceed $1 million in total.
In the fall of 2021, President Biden signed into law the so-called Infrastructure bill, some $1.2 trillion in pork barrel spending, passed with the help of turncoat Republicans (see 
New York State has become the North Korea of the United States. It is narrow and parochial and devoid of freedom. If you operate a business in New York and you are not in a protected or favored class, or if your business does not bribe someone in the Democrat Party, you are in danger of losing that business. New York is aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. A “bitcoin miner” operating in beautiful Upstate NY, near the shore of Seneca Lake, uses a small natural gas power plant to provide power for its 15,300 computer servers. The radical Democrats running the state, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, want it shut down and gone. They are close to achieving their objective. How did we fall this far?
For years, we’ve seen the lie repeated by mainstream media, Big Green shills, and environmental lackeys that fossil energy gets big government subsidies. Let’s put that lie to bed right now. The Bidenistas, who operate the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), very quietly issued a major new report in early August that shows green energy receives FAR MORE in the way government subsidies than does fossil energy. FAR MORE.
TRC Capital Investment Corporation has sent an unsolicited “mini-tender” offer to Dominion Energy stockholders looking to purchase up to 2 million shares of Dominion’s common stock at an offer price that is 4.47% lower than the current share price. TRC Capital is looking to pick up Dominion shares on the cheap and turn around and flip them at a higher price. Dominion is warning stockholders they should not agree to the deal.
Newly-elected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appointed a working group in April to help guide him on what he should do concerning the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax and the broader issue of global warming (see 
Two weeks ago, the U.S. rig count erased a couple of weeks of anemic gains by dropping 11 rigs from the total, sinking to 630 active rigs, the lowest count since February of 2022 (see