MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Governor’s appeal of greenhouse gas decision wrong; NATIONAL: Well productivity gains clash with cost inflation in U.S. oil patch; INTERNATIONAL: Europe continuing to rely heavily on natural gas; Long-term LNG contracts offer Europe supply security.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Nov 30, 2023”
Sometimes, the only place you can find important news is from your opponents. Example: The radicals of Food & Water Watch (far-left “environmental” organization) ran an op-ed appearing on NorthJersey.com that is the equivalent of a printed temper tantrum decrying the news that a compressor station project they thought they had stopped is, in fact, now up and running. The compressor in West Milford, NJ, is part of Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) East 300 expansion project, an upgrade of TGP to deliver an extra 115 MMcf/d of natural gas to Consolidated Edison and its customers in New York City and surrounding suburbs. East 300 is a FERC-approved project (see FERC Issues Compressor Permits for TGP’s East 300 Upgrade in NY, NJ).
Read More “TGP East 300 NJ Gas Compressor Powers Up! Antis Throw a Tantrum”
An increasingly important market for U.S. natural gas, especially gas coming from the Marcellus/Utica, is LNG exports. The gas that flows to LNG export plants feeding the plants so they can liquefy and export it, is called feedgas. The U.S. hit an all-time high of 13.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of feedgas flowing to LNG facilities in April of this year. Then exports slowed over the summer. However, as we recently reported, LNG cargo shipments picked up again in October, tying the all-time high of cargoes sent in a single month (see U.S. LNG Exports Tie All-Time High in October with 110 Cargoes). RBN Energy is now reporting that U.S. feedgas volumes for November will, when the month is done, hit a brand new, all-time high of 13.8 Bcf/d.
Read More “U.S. LNG Feedgas Demand Hits All-Time High in November”
Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility recently received Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service (see Venture Global Gets FERC OK to Commission 3 Calcasieu Pass Trains). The other trains, 1-6, have been online for 18 months but are not officially in commercial service, even though the facility has now shipped over 200 cargoes! Venture Global claims it’s still working out the kinks. Venture’s contracted customers are frustrated that they aren’t getting any shipments and have sued (see Repsol Joins Shell, BP in Suing Venture Global for Missed LNG). With breathtaking chutzpah, Venture Global recently said the facility will not officially be online for commercial service until the fourth quarter of 2024.
Read More “Venture Global LNG Keeping Up “Not-Ready” Farce Until Late 2024″
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the U.S. Two years ago, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see TVA Investing $1B to Build New Natgas-Fired Electric Plants). A number of those projects are underway. All of them are opposed (typically via lawsuits) by foreign-backed Big Green groups (see our TVA stories here). Yesterday, TVA announced another proposed new gas-fired power plant — this one in Mississippi.
Read More “TVA Proposes New 500 MW Natural Gas Power Plant in Mississippi”
We spotted a pair of articles noting a decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the U.S. energy sector in 2023. One of the articles, from the Bidenistas at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), credits an increase in so-called renewable power generation as the main reason for the decrease. The second article, from Philadelphia attorney Dan Markind, who writes about the Marcellus, properly credits the decrease in CO2 emissions to the retirement of coal-fired power replaced by natural gas-fired power. However, a chart in the EIA article caught our attention and is why we titled this post the way we did. The indisputable fact is that natural gas continues to dominate power generation (the #1 fuel for powergen), which is unchanged in 2024 and for the foreseeable future.
Read More “NatGas Continues to Dominate in U.S. Electric Generation in 2024”
A team of researchers led by the University of Maryland claims they can now “fingerprint” methane to determine the source of where the molecules come from. Using isotopic variants, the researchers say they can distinguish fossil fuel sources of methane from microbial sources from swamps, landfills, and farms. If true, this is a new and welcomed development. First, the news, then a discussion of its importance.
Read More “Researchers Say They Can “Fingerprint” Methane to Determine Origin”
In its assessment of global LNG supplies and natural gas stocks for the winter of 2023/2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says the world (and the U.S.) has enough natural gas to meet demand. However, there’s a big BUT… EIA says, “but risks remain.” What are those risks? Possible extreme weather and supply issues.
Read More “EIA Says World has Enough NatGas & LNG to Meet Demand This Winter”
NATIONAL: Icon of the Seas officially joins Royal Caribbean; What’s the future of natgas, hydrogen internal combustion engines?; Airline strikes deal to bury carbon in biomass bricks; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC+ talks hit stalemate; What does Milei’s presidential win mean for O&G in Argentina?; Oil and gas will be needed for ‘decades to come.’
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Wed, Nov 29, 2023”
More progress to report on finishing the 94% completed (now likely closer to 97% completed) Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP needs to cross under Interstate 81 in Montgomery County, VA, and it’s no small challenge to drill under the highway because it’s solid rock. On Oct. 13, MVP (being built by Equitrans Midstream) filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to drill 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on the I-81 crossing. Last Tuesday, FERC approved it, although the approval comes with a few strings attached, like using special lights and monitoring noise levels.
Read More “MVP Gets FERC Permission to Drill 24/7 Under Interstate 81 in Va.”
An interesting dichotomy we sometimes (but don’t often) see: The NYMEX Henry Hub futures price is down (below $3/MMBtu) and heading lower, while spot prices (physical trading) of natural gas at various trading hubs around the country are going higher, especially in the Northeast. In both cases — the futures price and the spot price — the primary reason for moving down or up is the weather, which may seem contradictory. We will explain…
Read More “NYMEX Futures Price Drops, Spot Prices Pop, Both Due to Weather”
We spotted an article appearing on the PBS-backed Allegheny Front website supposedly reporting a story about Pennsylvania lawmakers looking for “best practices” to adopt in regulating the soon-coming hydrogen hub projects the state will see. PA will see some investment in hydrogen from two different hydrogen hub projects led by neighboring states (West Virginia and Delaware). The article wants you to think that PA lawmakers are reviewing and considering various regulations they might use to protect the public in this uncharted new territory of hydrogen energy. The real thrust of the article, however, is to push a leftist narrative that the hydrogen hubs should avoid using natural gas as the feedstock to produce hydrogen.
Read More “Big Green Tries to Pressure PA to Block NatGas in Hydrogen Hubs”
On November 16, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed to Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Company’s petition requesting that FERC declare Dominion’s planned LNG production, storage, and regasification facility in Greensville County, VA, would be exempt from FERC jurisdiction under section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA). The project includes a 25-million-gallon LNG storage tank, 15 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of liquefaction capacity, 500 MMcf/d regasification capacity, pretreatment facilities, and associated station yard piping.
Read More “Dominion LNG Storage for Va. Power Plant Exempt from FERC Regs”
Once a month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts 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. Last month, the report predicted new all-time highs for natural gas production in 2023 (see EIA Boosts Prediction for Record-High NatGas Prod. 2023 – Oct. STEO). The latest monthly report, issued earlier this month, revises those record-high predictions down just a tad, but they will still set a new record. EIA projects that dry gas production will end up at 103.68 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2023 and rise to 105.12 Bcf/d in 2024. The current record high is 99.60 Bcf/d, set in 2022.
Read More “EIA Scales Back 2023 NatGas Production Estimate, Still Record-High”
A pair of analysts (authors/economists) have an article on the OilPrice.com website asking this question: Does the Natural Gas Industry Have a Future? They use data to paint a picture of a commodity (natural gas) that is, at best, in trouble. Why? The sales volume of natgas has gone up, but ever-so-slowly. The usage of natural gas by consumers to heat and cook is going down, especially in places that are banning it for those uses (like New York State). The picture painted by the authors appears to be pretty bleak. As usual, we have a different perspective.
Read More “Does the U.S. Natural Gas Industry Have a Future?”
Before heading out the door last Wednesday for the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend, MDN checked to see if the various state environmental agencies had posted updates for new permits issued to drill shale wells. We found only a single permit issued, in Pennsylvania, for new shale wells among all three Marcellus/Utica states (nothing for Ohio or West Virginia). We figured maybe the worker bees had not yet entered the data, so we held back the report for the week of Nov. 13 – 19 new permits. We checked again yesterday morning, and then again this morning. And it’s still only that single PA permit, which is the lowest number of new permits issued in a single week in our extensive memory of tracking these things. We hope the dearth of permits is because of the holiday and is a fluke and not a new trend.
Read More “1 New Shale Well Permit Issued for PA-OH-WV Nov 13 – 19”