Everyone is fixated on hydrogen as the savior of humankind. However, there is no widespread demand for hydrogen because we still don’t have pipelines and appliances that can use pure hydrogen (see Why 100% Hydrogen Will Never Power Your Home; Why Antis Hate H2). Even so, the world seems focused on how to produce ever more quantities of hydrogen.
Read More “Wildcatters Pursue the Next Big Thing – Drilling for Hydrogen!”
NATIONAL: Indoor air quality high on fright factor, low on actual findings; AGA files opposition to EPA’s natgas furnace elimination efforts; INTERNATIONAL: UK climate committee calls for tougher fossil fuel permitting; Traders to blame as European gas markets descend into chaos; While Canada dithers on natural gas US adds to its LNG lead.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Wed, Jun 28, 2023”
It really is sad (and angering) to behold the tactics of the left. Their favorite #1 tactic is fear. If the left can convince you the end is near à la “climate change” and “ticking time bomb pipelines” and “bomb trains” and “radiation” and “water contamination” and other incendiary (false) claims about fossil energy, they have you. The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle and had stopped this 94% completed project cold. But then Congress passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see Equitrans Announces Mountain Valley Pipe to Get Completed in 2023). However, the very creative left isn’t done yet–oh no.
Read More “Left Claims MVP Pipes “Rotting” Above Ground for Years, Dangerous”
The Henry Hub price of natural gas (even physically traded spot prices around the country) are ever-so-gradually moving higher. Yes, we’re cheerleaders for higher natgas prices! (Not too high, but certainly higher than the current $2-$3 range.) Even though we’re pro-gas and cheerleaders for higher prices (we openly admit our bias), we’re also realists, and we try to bring you the unvarnished truth. Are prices really moving higher? Or is this just another short-term up/down cycle?
Read More “Henry Hub NatGas Price Moves Higher on Weather, Supply”
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania State Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee interviewed and unanimously voted to recommend the nomination of Richard Negrin as Secretary of Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) be approved. But not before Sen. Gene Yaw put Negrin on the hot seat, asking him some VERY pointed questions about the department and Negin’s own statements.
Read More “PA Senate Committee Grills, Approves Rich Negrin for DEP Secretary”
NGLs, or natural gas liquids, are an essential revenue stream for Marcellus/Utica drillers in the “wet gas” regions of the play. Those regions are found in southwestern Pennsylvania, the northern panhandle of West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. There are several pipelines that flow M-U NGLs to other regions or to export facilities. Among them is Enterprise Products Partners’ 1,230-mile Appalachia to Texas Express (ATEX) pipeline to the Gulf Coast, and Kinder Morgan’s 270-mile Utica-to-Ontario-Pipeline-Access (UTOPIA) pipeline from Harrison County, Ohio, to Windsor in Canada’s Ontario province. However, most M-U NGLs travel through Energy Transfer’s Mariner East and West pipelines, with Mariner East flowing to the Marcus Hook export terminal near Philadelphia.
Read More “How M-U NGLs Get Exported – ET’s Mariner Pipelines & Marcus Hook”
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. Hope Gas recently received approval from the Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia to acquire nearly 900 miles of gathering pipelines in northern West Virginia from Equitrans Midstream and add the pipeline to the 2,000 miles of WV gathering pipes it already owns (see Equitrans Selling 900 Miles of WV Gathering Pipes to Hope Gas). Hope Gas just cut the ribbon on a new headquarters in Morgantown, WV.
Read More “Utility Co. Hope Gas Transfers HQ from Illinois to Morgantown, WV”
Gas-fired power plant additions have surged in 2023 according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) most recent infrastructure report (full copy below). Nearly 4,470 megawatts (MW) of natural gas-fired electric generation came online in the first four months this year, up from 551 MW in the same period in 2022. Utility-scale solar capacity increased by 3,409 MW through April of this year, up from 3,064 MW in the year-ago period. New wind capacity fell to 1,967 MW from 5,161 MW in the same period last year. Contrary to the constant meme that “renewables” like solar and wind are replacing natural gas for electric generation, the facts say otherwise.
Read More “More Gas-Fired Electric Generating Added than Solar or Wind in 2023”
Other than not using the term ESG (environment, social, governance), Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, hasn’t changed. He intends to keep pushing ESG without calling it that. Fink tells the companies that BlackRock invests in to lower carbon emissions (i.e., stop using fossil energy, and stop making loans to fossil energy companies). He is completely unrepentant, even though state after state is dropping his company’s services.
Read More “Unrepentant BlackRock Won’t Use ESG Term, Still Forces Divestment”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere and ENN sign LNG sale and purchase agreement; NATIONAL: Biden proposes to cut project fees for wind and solar by 80%; Electric vehicles make no sense on the battlefield.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Jun 27, 2023”
On Saturday, June 3, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023, also known as the “debt ceiling” bill, into law. Part of the new law is a provision that forces government agencies (on every level) to finish granting any outstanding permits to the long-stalled, 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The new law also ripped away the right of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to hear any further cases regarding MVP. All of which means construction should, theoretically, begin by the end of this month (see Court Filing Says MVP Construction to Restart by End of June). On Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued a permit they’ve issued multiple times before, and this time there is no overturning it in the 4th Circuit.
Read More “Army Corps Issues Final MVP Permit, Construction Restarts “Soon””
Just two weeks ago, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) told all water users in the basin that have withdrawal permits, including shale drillers, they should review those permits, and if there are restrictions for withdrawals during low streamflow conditions, they need to make alternative plans (see SRBC Advises Water Permit Holders to Consider Alternative Sources). The concern is an ongoing drought in the Northeast. However, at the same time the commission was issuing its warning, it was also approving new water withdrawal projects!
Read More “Drought Over? SRBC Approves New Shale Water Withdrawals in PA”
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the Dionysus well pad (see West Deer Township Denies Olympus Permit to Build Shale Pad). The “concerned citizens” then attempted to block a second well pad, the Leto pad, proposed by Olympus in another West Deer location (see West Deer Antis Try to Block 2nd Olympus Shale Well Pad). However, West Deer supervisors approved the Leto pad last week, which has set off the antis.
Read More “West Deer Approves Olympus “Leto” Well Pad, Antis Pledge to Sue”
The weekly rig count for the U.S. has continued to be anemic over the past two months. Baker Hughes, with its venerable rig count, reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count continued to bleed rigs–down another five rigs to 682 in the week ending June 23. That’s the lowest count since April 2022 and the eighth 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!
Read More “M-U Rig Count Holds Even; U.S. Count Down 8th Week in a Row”
A month MDN told you about a coming real-life nightmare that the Everett LNG import terminal, which accepts and regasifies foreign natural gas, may shut down following the closure of New England’s biggest natural gas-fired power plant, the Mystic Generating Station in Everett, MA (see Nightmare in Boston – Everett LNG Import Terminal May Close 2024). The potential shuttering of the Everett LNG plant was the main topic of discussion at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) second New England Winter Gas-Electric Forum last week in Portland, Maine.
Read More “Potential Shutdown of Boston LNG Terminal Discussed at FERC Forum”
We have a federal court decision from an interesting case to share. From June 2005 to October 2007, U.S. Energy Development Corporation contracted with Superior Well Services (of Pennsylvania) to frack natural gas wells owned by U.S. Energy in (of all places) New York State. Yes, fracking used to (still does) happen in NY–at least with conventional wells. U.S. Energy filed a claim against Superior in October 2007, saying Superior had damaged 97 of its wells during fracking by using the wrong kind of chemical mixtures in its fracking fluid.
Read More “3rd Circuit Rules Insurance Co. Not Liable for Bad Fracking Fluid”