Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 10, 2023
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Tractor-trailer carrying sand overturns in East Finley; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: BH to supply 3 liquefaction trains for Rio Grande LNG project; Two counties in NM account for 29% of Permian crude oil production; Biden’s war on O&G shifts to a Permian Basin lizard; NATIONAL: BP Energy Partners announces sale of Mesa Natural Gas Solutions; Is Biden cracking down on pipeline violators?; The energy transition isn’t; INTERNATIONAL: Australia rejects renaming natural gas to silly “fossil” gas.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 10, 2023”
MDN is taking a few days post-July 4th to rest and relax and recharge. We hope you had a great 4th holiday! We will be back on July 10th to catch you up on all the news related to the Marcellus and Utica shale region. We had hoped to bring you a permit report today for the week of June 26th through July 2nd, but the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has not yet (as of Wednesday, July 5th) updated its weekly report, so we will bring you that report first thing next week. If there is any earth-shattering news related to our region, we’ll break back in with an update. Otherwise, see you on July 10th!
The weekly rig count for the U.S. has continued to be anemic for over two months now. With its venerable rig count, Baker Hughes reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count continued to bleed rigs–down another eight rigs to 674 in the week ending June 30. That’s the lowest count since April 2022, and the ninth week in a row the U.S. has lost active rigs. The good news for the Marcellus/Utica is that both the Marcellus and the Utica maintained the same rig levels last week. It’s good news they didn’t bleed any more rigs. Note: We’ve added a couple of new weekly rig charts below to provide further context to the count and what it means for the M-U.
TransCanada Corporation, which renamed itself TC Energy in 2019, made a play for and bought out/merged in U.S.-based Columbia Pipeline Group in 2016 (see 
Pennsylvania’s Democrat Party is hellbent on driving the Marcellus Shale industry out of the state. They have been for years. That’s just a truthful observation and beyond dispute. The latest evidence is the party’s insistence on adding a severance tax on top of the existing impact fee, PA’s version of a severance tax. The Dems in the PA House passed a resolution on Friday by a single vote that directs the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to “study” Pennsylvania’s revenue from the oil and gas industry, comparing it with the top five states in natural gas production in the U.S.
Superior Pipeline, headquartered in Oklahoma, operates in the following geographic areas: the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle, Central/Western Oklahoma, Southeastern Oklahoma, Southeast Texas, Kansas, and Appalachia, including Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Superior owns and operates natural gas gathering and processing facilities, natural gas treating plants, and over 3,700 miles of pipeline. Unit Corporation, which had owned 50% of Superior, recently finished selling its 50% share to OPTrust and Partners Group. With the sale, the new 100% owners have changed the name of the company from Superior Pipeline to Superior Midstream.
When the Bidenistas act outside of their predictable, normal behavior, it raises a red flag, making us wonder what they are up to. Last week a leftist who works in the Biden Department of Interior told a group of rabid leftists (her philosophical kin) the Biden administration will not, as the group demands, “phase down oil and gas production on federal lands and waters.” Which sent the crazies into orbit. The Interior Bidentista told them the administration has “limited resources” and “competing priorities” that prevent it from, at this time, pursuing a phase-down of all oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
Here’s a scientific FACT: Humans (indeed all animals) are carbon-based life forms. Carbon dioxide is an essential molecule for life on Planet Earth. Without carbon and CO2, life would not exist. Therefore, to call CO2 “pollution” is “outrageous,” according to Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright. Calling CO2 “pollution” is like calling water and oxygen “pollution.” It’s nonsensical. And yet that is what the left does every day, in a historic act of massive, planet-wide brainwashing.
Here’s the sad end of a sad chapter in Ohio’s history–the conclusion to the largest bribery scandal in the state’s history. We’re referring to Ohio House Bill (HB) 6, a law granting billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy bribed state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million to a small group of insiders, including former Speaker of the House Larry Householder (see 
In January 2016, Invenergy announced its intention to build a natural gas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County, PA (see 
The left is insidious–and relentless. They thought they had a winning issue with so-called ESG, or 
We keep a close eye out for any credible news predicting which way the price of natural gas will head in the near and longer term. Everyone has an opinion about whether natgas will go higher, go lower, or stay the same–and why. Nobody could predict what would happen last year after Vladimir Putin declared war and invaded Ukraine. Gas prices when through the roof (along with oil prices) on the theory that Europe would run out of gas and the rest of the world, including the U.S., couldn’t meet the shortfall. But then we had a mild winter–in Europe and here at home. The world exited winter with extra gas sitting in storage. More supply with the same (or less) demand equals lower prices. And that’s exactly where we have been for months–lower prices. What about this summer? Will the price increase? Decrease? Stay the same?
New shale permits issued for Jun 19-25 in the Marcellus/Utica took another nosedive. There were 11 new permits issued last week, down from 21 the previous week. There’s just no denying that the trend in permits is generally down. Last week’s permit tally included 6 new permits in Pennsylvania, 2 new permits in Ohio (both permits in the Marcellus layer!), and 3 new permits in West Virginia. Olympus Energy scored the most new permits, with 4 issued in Allegheny County, PA. Southwestern Energy had the second most new permits, with 3 permits issued in Marshall County, WV.