MDN Upstream Index (MUI) – Mar 30, 2023
The most recent day of active trading was Wed., Mar. 29, 2023. The numbers below reflect yesterday’s closing numbers.
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Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Mar 30, 2023
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pittsburgh to get $1.5M for electric vehicles, natural gas trucks; Attempts to ban natural gas in budget will hurt New Yorkers; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Natgas flows to Freeport LNG export plant in Texas rise – Refinitiv; NATIONAL: Expiring April natgas futures fall below $2 on downward price pressure; Which president had the biggest impact on US oil production?; Activity stalls in top U.S. oilfields, outlook sours – Fed survey; INTERNATIONAL: US has replaced Russia as Europe’s top crude oil supplier.
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NYMEX Henry Hub Crashing and Burning – Lowest Close in 30 Months
We consider $2/MMBtu to be “the basement” when it comes to the price of natural gas trading at the nation’s benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana. Yesterday we almost hit the bottom of the basement, with gas closing at $2.03. What happens if gas (gasp) closes below $2? Do we call that the sub-basement? Are we breaking through the barrier and right down into hell? Whatever you call it, prepare yourself. Why did gas tumble again yesterday to a new 30-month low? And will it go lower?
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Wild Swings in NatGas Price “Here to Stay for Foreseeable Future”
The past 18 months have been a wild ride for natural gas prices. We’ve gone from years of low prices to spiking near $10/MMBtu. In just the past few months, prices have dropped like a rock. The price dropped to a fresh 30-month low yesterday (see today’s lead story). The NYMEX price now threatens to dip below $2/MMBtu. Crazy! According to analysts speaking with Argus Media, we can expect continued wild gyrations in the price of natural gas “for the foreseeable future.” Some analysts say that volatility (sudden spikes up and down) in the price of natgas “could be here to stay.” As in permanently.
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Belmont County | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio | Rice Energy
OH Lawsuit Filed Against Utica Fracker Accuses Subsurface Trespass
In a case initially filed last summer in Ohio, a Belmont County mineral rights owner alleges that Rice Drilling (now owned by EQT) drained natural gas from a rock layer it did not have the right to access according to the signed lease. Golden Eagle Resources says the lease allowed Rice to drill down only as far as the Utica Shale layer, which Rice did. However, Golden Eagle says fractures from Rice’s fracking of the Utica layer reached down into the adjacent Point Pleasant layer and drained some of the gas from the Point Pleasant too–and that’s a no-no according to the lease.
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WVU Researchers Study Methane Leak Prevention in the Marcellus
WVU students study methane leaks by taking a sample of vent emissions from a shale gas liquid storage tank to test it with a gas chromatograph Researchers at West Virginia University have received a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. EPA to study methane leaks from liquid storage tanks–how they happen and ways to potentially stop leaks from happening in the future. The researchers will sample and monitor plumes from storage tanks located in the Marcellus Shale region. The study will measure methane, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and hazardous air pollutants emitted from liquid storage tanks located “upstream” at drilling sites as well as “midstream” at various pipeline sites along the routes that oil and gas take on their way to refining and processing facilities.
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NY Republican Leader Obliterates Hochul’s Idiotic Gas Stove Ban
As we reported yesterday, New York legislators are pushing back against a truly crazy plan by NY Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban natural gas (and fuel oil) in all homes and businesses across the Empire State (see New York Legislators Block Hochul NatGas Ban for Existing Homes). Although Hochul wants a total ban, she won’t get it. She may, however, get a ban on new homes and businesses from connecting to natgas lines beginning in 2025. Even that plan is certifiably crazy.
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Pieridae’s Goldboro LNG Cancels Plan to Use Western Canada NatGas
For over 10 years, MDN has tracked a Canadian LNG export project in Nova Scotia planned by Pieridae Energy. The project is called Goldboro LNG. In May 2021, the company said a final investment decision (FID) would happen no later than June 30, 2021. It never happened. One year ago, we told you of Pieridae’s plan to resuscitate the project and move it forward (see Pieridae Outlines Plan to Resuscitate Nova Scotia Goldboro LNG). Again, nothing has happened in the past year. No pulse. Now comes word that Pieridae is revising the project from a 10 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) facility down to three MTPA. The company is also changing the source of the molecules it will liquefy and export–now coming from a source you would never guess.
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Mall of America Hotel 1st to Use New CO2-Capture Tech on Gas Heaters
CleanO2 Heat Recovery and Carbon Capture Process (click for larger version) We happened across a story so interesting and instructive that we want to share it with you–even though (technically) it has nothing specifically to do with the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday the Radisson Blu Mall of America hotel, part of Choice Hotels International, announced it is the first hotel in the world to install CarbinX™ carbon-capture technology on the hotel’s natural gas water heating equipment. CarbinX captures carbon dioxide (CO2) and converts it to a nontoxic carbonate powder known as pearl ash.
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MDN Upstream Index (MUI) – Mar 29, 2023
The most recent day of active trading was Tue., Mar. 28, 2023. The numbers below reflect yesterday’s closing numbers.
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Other Stories of Interest: Wed, Mar 29, 2023
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Probe of Pa. chocolate factory blast focuses on gas pipeline; NATIONAL: The green energy agenda increases poverty – it must stop; INTERNATIONAL: What will happen at the next OPEC+ meeting?
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Anti-Gas PennFuture VP Heading to Shapiro DEP as Policy Director
There is a revolving door in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, between PennFuture and Democrat governors. Pat McDonnell, the former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), charged with overseeing shale drilling in the state, was a closet radical working against the shale industry in the Gov. Tom Wolf administration. How do we know? As soon as he left the DEP last year, McDonnell became president of the uber-left, anti-shale PennFuture organization (see Former PA DEP Sec. Pat McDonnell New CEO of Anti-Shale Group). McDonnell now routinely criticizes the shale industry in the state. With a new Democrat administration in Harrisburg (Josh Shapiro, Governor, and Rich Negrin, DEP Secretary), PennFuture is sending one of its own, Ezra Thrush (VP of Government Affairs and chief lobbyist), over to the DEP to become the new Policy Director at the agency. The politically incestuous door just keeps revolving…
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Epsilon Energy 4Q – Production Slips but Profits Up 10%
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2022 update last week. The company’s net gas production was 2.49 Bcf (billion cubic feet) in total, not per day, during 4Q22. That number is down 3% from 2.58 Bcf in 3Q21. Epsilon generated revenues of $15.2 million for 4Q22, compared to $13.8 million in 4Q21–up 10%.
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Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Statewide WV | Virginia | West Virginia
Four Possible Outcomes for Stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline Project
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA is 94% complete (has been for two years) but sits idle, waiting for the other 6% to be completed so it can start up and begin to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules to the southeastern U.S. Lawsuits funded by Big Green groups (with foreign connections) have blocked the completion of the project…for YEARS. It would be fair to say the project is currently in a stalemate with Big Green radicals, who somehow have coopted the help of three Democrat judges who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Stalemates don’t go on forever. One way or the other, this situation will get resolved–likely this year. There are four potential outcomes for the stalled MVP project, a project critical to the future of the Marcellus/Utica.
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Liberals Pretending to be Conservatives Push PA RGGI Carbon Tax
An environmental group purporting to be run by political conservatives, calling itself Conservatives For Responsible Stewardship (CRS), is pushing for Pennsylvania to adopt the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–an obscene carbon tax that will kill the Marcellus shale industry in the state. In what has to be the ultimate example of chutzpah, the president of CRS, Dave Jenkins, argues in a column appearing in the Erie Times-News, that RGGI is (don’t laugh) a “market-based program” and the type of thing old Ron Reagan would have liked. HOGWASH!
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New York Legislators Block Hochul NatGas Ban for Existing Homes
We live and work in Upstate New York State (sad to say). It is our birthplace, and our families live here. However, New York has fallen. We are overwhelmed with Democrat socialists who don’t care about traditional American values like freedom. The best illustration of this is our newly-elected Governor, Kathy Hochul. She not only wants to ban natural gas hookups for new homes and businesses across the entire state, she wants to force all EXISTING homes and businesses to give up using natural gas (and fuel oil, and coal, and wood) as well. It’s certifiably insane. Yet that’s how the Democrat socialist mind works. Fortunately, there are at least a few Dems left willing to push back on some of this insanity. Where do plans stand to ban natgas in the Empire State?
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