Demand for Natural Gas in U.S. Soars, Up 43% from 2012 to 2022
Domestic consumption and export of natural gas in the U.S. grew a combined 34.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), or 43%, from 2012 to 2022. One of the biggest reasons for the dramatic increase was a mass change from producing electricity with coal plants to using natural gas-fired plants instead. So says the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a new post.
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Earlier this year, British oil giant BP announced it would no longer publish its vaunted annual Statistical Review of World Energy, a publication it has issued each year since 1952 (see 
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 
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.
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 
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 
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 
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 
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!