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WV Sen. Capito Says MVP-Blocking 4th Circuit “Must be Stopped”
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, from West Virginia, spoke with reporters yesterday. She spared no words in describing her disgust with the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and their latest illegal maneuver to block the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. She said she is “seriously, totally astounded” by “this politicized court” and its decision to block MVP construction after Congress “spoke loud and clear” in its support to finish MVP asap. She also said, “This activist court has got to be stopped.” We agree.
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In 2021 as he was running for the office of Governor in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin pledged if he won, he would remove the state from the onerous carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Following his recent review of a new regulation to remove the state from RGGI, Youngkin is on the cusp of keeping his promise.
Exxon Mobil Corporation announced it is buying Denbury Inc., a developer of carbon capture, utilization, and storage solutions and enhanced oil recovery, for $4.9 billion in an all-stock transaction. Denbury currently focuses on the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain region. Presumably, Exxon plans to expand Denbury’s technology to other regions, including the Marcellus/Utica.
Hydrogen energy is closely tied to natural gas. Currently, 95% of all hydrogen produced in the world is produced by cracking methane (natural gas). The so-called regional hydrogen hubs being dangled by the Bidenistas (up to $1 billion of government financing for 6-10 projects) can potentially launch expanded demand for natural gas in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
This one has us laughing our considerably fat rear-ends off. The left long ago corrupted science, turning it from the pursuit of objective facts into forced obedience to political opinions (i.e., global warming is caused by fossil fuels). The left issues mountains of data–graphs, tables, pictures–that supposedly prove they are correct with their opinions and theories about global warming (which they renamed “climate change”). But what’s this? Many people don’t believe all of those graphs and tables and data being pushed–they’re just too dumb to understand it. What’s the solution? Instead of using charts and graphs generated by Microsoft Excel that are so literal, have artists redraw them as “fine art” to make them look prettier. The left says, in a new study, dumb folks will fall for the pretty pictures every time.
New shale permits issued for Jul 3-9 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic decrease after posting a dramatic increase the week before. There were 11 new permits issued last week, way down from the 39 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included a scant 3 new permits in Pennsylvania, 3 new permits in Ohio, and 5 new permits in West Virginia. The top permittee for the week was Northeast Natural Energy, receiving 5 permits in Monongalia County, WV.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Coterra builds on partnership with Dennis Farm; NATIONAL: D.C. Circuit court rejects DOE’s de facto ban on natural gas boilers; USA LNG cargoes poised to shift to Asian ports; US Henry Hub, international natgas prices slump week over week; American energy independence is a national security priority; INTERNATIONAL: This is the goldilocks price for oil.
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that a third-party contractor “struck a well head” on a Hilcorp shale well pad in Columbiana County, Ohio, resulting in a leak that forced the evacuation of 450 people within a mile of the well site (see 
The analysts at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) have been looking at natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica (i.e., Appalachia) for 2022. The M-U is the largest-producing natural gas shale play in the world. Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S. after Texas. The EIA looked at PA’s production, specifically production from the four largest-producing counties, for 2022. They found what we told you about back in March: Production in PA has fallen (see 
For years we’ve railed against what we consider the theft of royalties and bonus payments by the state of Pennsylvania from landowners with creeks and rivers running through their leased (for shale drilling) property. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) claims that under a centuries-old law, the state of PA “owns” the property under “navigable” waterways–including rivers and streams (see 
Driftwood LNG, a 27.6 million tonnes of LNG per year facility that will cost on the order of $16.8 billion to build, has not made an official final investment decision (FID) to proceed with building the FERC-approved project. However, construction began on the project in March 2022 (see 
Yesterday the International Gas Union (IGU) released its 14th annual 2023 World LNG Report–the world’s most comprehensive public source of information on key developments and trends in the LNG sector (full copy below). With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the gas markets went wild last year. The IGU report calls 2022 the “most turbulent year of gas markets” in history and says, “LNG demonstrated essential value as a flexible, reliable, available energy resource for a secure energy transition.” Forget about the energy transition nonsense in that statement. The fact is, LNG saved the day over the past year plus. LNG, particularly U.S. LNG, pulled Europe’s bacon out of the fire.