MDN Upstream Index (MUI) – May 16, 2023
The most recent day of active trading was Mon., May 15, 2023. The numbers below reflect yesterday’s closing numbers.
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Other Stories of Interest: Tue, May 16, 2023
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Gulfport Energy stock hits new 1-year high at $98.72; NATIONAL: The investment boom in ‘renewable natural gas’ is sparking debate; INTERNATIONAL: Europe gas extends drop with record amounts of LNG idling at sea.
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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia
U.S. Natural Gas Drilling Rig Count Craters, Down 10% in One Week
The news lit up Friday afternoon with the latest rig count by Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). We always caution that weekly rig counts are not a reliable way to gauge drilling activity as the count floats up and down each week. However, on Friday, the bottom kind of dropped out of the natural gas rig count. BKR said the gas-focused rig count dropped by 16 to 141 for the week, which amounts to a 10% drop in a single week. That *does* get your attention. The general consensus seems to be that low, low prices (bumping around near $2/MMBtu) have finally taken their toll, and drillers are pulling back on drilling new wells. How many rigs were lost in the Marcellus and Utica last week?
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Big NatGas Investor Says Commodity Price has Bottomed, Going Higher
John Love, who used to manage the United States Natural Gas Fund (the country’s biggest natural gas ETF), said in an interview with CNBC last week he believes the commodity price of natural gas has already hit bottom and will rise from here. Love says drillers are focused on the future–and the future is LNG exports. Love’s sentiments about the price bottoming out were echoed by a second expert, Teucrium Trading CEO Sal Gilbertie.
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Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia
WV Sen. Manchin Vows “MVP is Going to be Built” One Way or Another
Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) introduced a permitting reform bill (for the third time) to save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from the clutches of colluding leftists who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (see Joe Manchin Floats New “Save MVP” Permitting Bill, Biden Supports). Manchin renamed the bill “Building American Energy Security Act of 2023.” A week later Manchin told reporters (our words, his sentiment) that come hell or high water, MVP *will* get built.
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Accidents | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Seneca Resources | Tioga County (PA)
Seneca Tardy in Responding to NOV for Tioga, PA Pad Spillage
The PA Environment Digest Blog has been reviewing the reports filed by Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) workers again and noticed a situation at a well pad in Delmar Township, Tioga County. According to DEP reports filed, a Notice of Violation (NOV) was issued to Seneca Resources for a well pad located on DCNR State Forest land last September. Surface water samples from puddles indicate wastewater (brine) from one or more wells spilled onto the ground.
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The Haughty John Kerry Tells O&G to Prove It Can Abate Emissions
The haughty John Kerry recently granted the official media house organ for the Democrat Party, the Associated Press, an interview. During the interview, Lord Kerry said oil and gas producers keep saying there are technological breakthroughs that will allow the world to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels without toasting Mom Earth. He said, in so many words, it’s either time to put up or shut up. Kerry “doubts” that existing technology is up to the task of abating greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels. Meanwhile, Kerry travels around the globe on a private jet that belches out more greenhouse gases than any random 100 citizens of planet earth. It must be nice to be married to a billionaire (Teresa Heinz Kerry).
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MDN Upstream Index (MUI) – May 15, 2023
The most recent day of active trading was Fri., May 12, 2023. The numbers below reflect Friday’s closing numbers.
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Other Stories of Interest: Mon, May 15, 2023
NATIONAL: Oil and gas needs to broaden base of support; Walmart ‘betting big’ on Cummins new X15N natural gas engine; INTERNATIONAL: Finally, rich countries recognize Africa’s right to use gas.
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New Biden EPA Regs a “Death Sentence” for Fossil-Fuel Power Plants
Yesterday the Bidenistas at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a hellscape of new regulations aimed at forcing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to close. That’s the sum total of what’s contained in a proposed 681-page behemoth new rule released (inflicted) yesterday by the EPA. But that’s not just MDN’s wild claim about this hellscape being created by Biden. The editors of the Wall Street Journal called the new EPA regulations “An EPA Death Sentence for Fossil-Fuel Power Plants,” with the subtitle “The Biden agency’s new rule means the end of natural gas-fueled electricity.”
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Beaver County | Energy Companies | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Shell
Radical Antis File Lawsuit Aiming to Shut Down Shell PA Cracker
Yesterday two radicalized Big Green groups–the Environmental Integrity Project (based in D.C.) and the Clean Air Council (based in Philadelphia)–filed a lawsuit against the Shell Polymers Monaca Plant (ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA), claiming the plant has repeatedly violated federal air pollution limits. The lawsuit requests the court assess huge fines and force it close down unless it can operate without any further violations of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and the federal Air Pollution Control Act (APCA). In other words, the radicals seek to shut down the $10 billion plant and keep it shut down–throwing 600 permanent employees out of work. Nice people at the Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council, eh?
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Ascent Resources 1Q – Big Swing to Profitability, Drilled 19 Wells
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer (352,000 leased acres) and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its first quarter 2023 update yesterday. Ascent net production averaged 2.2 Bcfe/d (billion cubic feet equivalent per day) during 1Q23, up 12% over 1Q22. The company made $1.1 billion in profit during 1Q23, a massive +$2.7 billion swing from losing $1.6 billion in 1Q22.
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Energy Companies | Energy Corporation of America | Greene County (PA) | Greylock Energy | Pennsylvania
ECA Marcellus Trust I Gives Investors 4.3 Cents per Unit in 1Q23
ECA Marcellus Trust I, the royalty interest holder in some of the wells drilled and maintained by Greylock Energy in Greene County, PA, announced it would issue a payout (the equivalent of a dividend) to unitholders of 4.3 cents per unit for 1Q23. That is down from 4Q22 when the Trust paid out 12.4 cents per unit, and down from 3Q22 when the Trust paid out 18 cents per unit. The company continues to hold back some profits ($90,000 in 1Q23) in order to build a cash reserve.
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Dems & GOP Desperate for Permitting Reform at PA Energy Summit
When the public teat is full of taxpayer money, ready to dispense, and big business can’t get its mouth around that teat to start sucking, big business begins to whine and moan. That about sums up what happened at the Pennsylvania Energy Summit held yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Bidenistas went on a drunken spending spree over the past two years, unleashing what amounts to trillions of dollars to be made available for so-called renewable energy projects via the poorly crafted Infrastructure bill and the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. Now, big business wants to start feeding on that money, but it can’t because it takes too long to get projects permitted. Too bad, so sad.
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Antis Attack PA Conventional Drillers Again Over Abandoned Wells
Spotlight PA, a partisan Democrat “newsroom” (propaganda outfit) powered by the Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with Harrisburg Patriot-News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF PBS Public Media, is taking aim at the conventional drilling industry. In an article about the “crisis” of unplugged orphaned and abandoned conventional oil and gas wells, Spotlight PA, via interviewees, says the $400 million coming from the federal government is not nearly enough money to plug some 200,000+ old wells in the state.
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Armstrong County | Ascent Resources | Bradford County | Chesapeake Energy | Columbiana County | Elk County | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Equinor/Statoil | Greene County (PA) | Harrison County | Hilcorp Energy | Monroe County | Ohio | PennEnergy Resources | Pennsylvania | Seneca Resources | Washington County | Weekly Permits
20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV May 1-7
New shale permits issued for May 1-7 in the Marcellus/Utica rose slightly from the prior week. There were 20 new permits issued last week, up from 18 in the prior week. Last week’s tally included 15 new permits for Pennsylvania, 5 new permits for Ohio, and no new permits in West Virginia. Last week the top receiver of new permits was PennEnergy Resources, with 5 permits issued in Armstrong County, PA. Chesapeake Energy was second-highest, with 4 permits issued in Bradford County, PA.
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