6% Spike in Price of Henry Hub Likely Due to Weather, Storage
Long-range forecasts for hot weather and a lighter-than-predicted storage report for natural gas led to a 6% spike up in the price of the NYMEX Henry Hub yesterday, closing at $2.76/MMBtu. The National Weather Service released modeling yesterday that shows hot temps will get hotter for the end of July and the beginning of August. Also, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly storage report yesterday, showing 41 Bcf was injected into storage for the previous week–lower than a predicted mid- to upper-40s Bcf. That was enough for traders to bid up the NYMEX price.
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On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) filed an amicus curiae “friend of the court” brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to show his support for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in its fight against the actions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (see 
Kimmeridge Energy, a private investment firm focused on the energy sector, yesterday published a white paper entitled, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” The thesis of the Kimmeridge report is that there are still too many (and too small) drillers in the shale sector. Kimmeridge believes we need consolidation into fewer, and bigger, companies. Why? There are not enough investors to go around, according to the report. As a result, the valuation of existing too-many public companies is too low. The fix is for fewer and bigger shale drillers.
Results from a new poll conducted by Morning Consult (on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute) indicate that an overwhelming majority of voters not only support the production of more American energy but also want the economic contributions of oil and natural gas to inform energy policies in the United States. Some 90 percent of voters agree that natural gas and oil play an important role in strengthening the U.S. economy. Some 88 percent of voters believe it is important to produce natural gas and oil here in the U.S. So why is Joe Biden trying to obliterate fossil energy?
We’re trying not to sound too PO’d (personally offended) here, but once again, in what seems to be an every month or two occurrence, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) online oil and gas permitting database is throwing an error. So, we are left with no permit numbers for PA for the week of July 10-16. Neither the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) reporting system nor the West Virginia DEP reporting system have these problems. It is only the PA DEP that routinely goes “off the air.” Why is that? [Rant over] Even without PA’s numbers, OH and WV combined issued 17 permits last week, versus the pathetic 11 total from the prior week that included PA.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Biden’s tough sell in PA – green energy to union workers; NATIONAL: U.S. leading indicators point to recession starting soon; KM predicts 20 Bcf/d of U.S. natgas demand growth by 2028; Catalyst can control methane emissions in natural gas engines; And now, the climate gang is coming for our thermostats; INTERNATIONAL: China, having bought out Biden, is playing climate with us; Europe set to reach natural gas storage target ahead of schedule.
We love a good “back from the dead” story. In 2017 Epiphany Water Solutions (aka Epiphany Environmental, LLC) filed for a permit to build a centralized oil and gas wastewater treatment facility in Coudersport (Potter County), PA (see 
Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco dropped a verbal bomb at the LNG 2023 conference held last week in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). Fusco told journalists that his company “will likely build a pipeline” that connects to other pipelines to flow even more natural gas to its Sabine Pass LNG export facility that sits near Sabine Lake, close to the Gulf Coast. The motivation is to get more gas for a planned “stage 5” expansion of the Sabine Pass facility, designed to liquefy and export an additional 20 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG.
In January, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
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