DOE Offering $30M for Tech Projects to Solve Gas Flaring Issue
What’s the government’s answer to everything? Money! Have a problem, throw money at it, and declare it solved. Need more votes in the next election? Money helps with that, too. Here’s the latest “money solves all problems” proposal from the Dept. of Energy (DOE)… The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced up to $30 million in free money (i.e., grants) for developing advanced technologies to reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas flaring at oil production sites. Cause you know, fugitive methane is toasting Mom Earth into a cinder.
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INTERNATIONAL: Oil rallies near nine month high; Fragile LNG market threatens volatility and return to coal; Buoyant LNG industry bets it’s in the energy mix for decades; India’s GAIL to tap spot LNG markets to meet surge in power demand.
Yesterday, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion has agreed to sell what we think (not 100% sure) are the remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt. The deal includes three LDCs–The East Ohio Gas Company, Public Service Company of North Carolina, and Questar Gas Company (along with Wexpro Company). The three LDCs serve about 3 million homes and businesses in Ohio, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho and include 78,000 miles of natural gas distribution, transmission, gathering, and storage pipelines and more than 62 Bcf of working underground and LNG storage capacity. Dominion wants to shed its natgas businesses and focus solely on electrifying everything.
In August, MDN told you about a new $2 billion hydrogen project coming to West Virginia (see 
On Saturday, August 26, a radicalized out-of-state “protester” (i.e., criminal) chained herself to a piece of excavating equipment being used in Montgomery County, Va., to drill and install the final pieces of Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) provided updates for various issues to the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) at a meeting held in Harrisburg and online. TAB’s mission is to increase transparency and communication about regulating the shale drilling industry in PA. TAB is authorized under the 2012 Oil and Gas Act to advise DEP in the formulation, drafting, and presentation stages of all regulations relating to unconventional oil and gas extraction. Kurt Klapkowski, DEP Deputy for Oil and Gas Management, spoke to the board on several issues. He was asked to comment on the recent fake studies released by University of Pittsburgh that purport to show a link between fracking and certain health conditions (see 
Pennsylvania State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa (
Last November, after months of carping and complaining, the (at that time) three Democrats who serve as commissioners for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) flipped and voted with the two Republican commissioners to approve Commonwealth LNG’s plan to erect a new LNG export plant in Cameron Parish, La. (see 
Quick! Apply pressure to the wound before the patient (in this case, the Marcellus/Utica) bleeds out. Another week, another lost rig in the Marcellus. We can’t seem to stem the flow of rigs leaving. The national rig count also lost one rig overall. For the eighth week in a row and the 17th of the last 18 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. The total is now down to 631 active rigs across both oil and gas (down from 632 last week). At least the loss is slowing. West Virginia dropped one rig after adding one last week. The rig counts for both Pennsylvania and Ohio stayed the same last week.
Three weeks ago, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see 
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. The company issued its latest update, for the first half of 2023, last Friday. Paul Gough, from the Pittsburgh Business Times, listened to the conference call and combed through the update. He hit on a key piece of news: Diversified has accelerated its program to plug old wells (its own wells in addition to orphaned wells) this year. In fact, the company has already (as of June 30) plugged 174 wells for the first half of the year. That number includes 87 of Diversified’s own wells.
Quick history lesson. In 2004, Range Resources was the first company to drill and frack the first Marcellus Shale gas well, which happened in Mt. Pleasant Township (Washington County), PA. It was love at first sight. Over the past almost 20 years, Range has added a few other counties to the list of place where it drills, and the company remains headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. However, Range considers Washington County, PA, “our core, our home, the DNA of our company.” The bond of love is still strong all these years later.
In July 2020, Dominion Energy announced it had decided to exit the natural gas pipeline business by selling it to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (see 
When Russia illegally and immorally invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the price of oil and natural gas worldwide soared to record highs. Western countries pledged to wean themselves off Putin’s oil and gas, and Putin threatened them in return with cutting them off without notice. There was a lot of scrambling, and Europe filled its storage with oil and gas, so prices began to drop when the winter of 2022/2023 rolled around. Prices have continued to drop (except for oil, recently). With prices in the doldrums, drillers are drilling less. Rigs are being released. Yet production is still rising! It’s confusing–what’s happening?