MiQ & Highwood Release New Index to Measure O&G Methane Intensity
MiQ and Highwood Emissions Management (HEM) yesterday released the world’s first “open-access, measurement-informed methane intensity index” for the U.S. natural gas sector. The MiQ-Highwood Index™ estimates (and the keyword there is ESTIMATES) a methane emissions intensity of 1% leakage from the production sector alone, and 2.2% leakage for the entire natural gas supply chain. Those numbers exceed current national averages suggested by the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory and GREET natural gas pathway models. The aim of the new MiQ-Highwood Index is methane shaming–to shame producers and pipeline companies into spending gobs of money to prevent every last molecule of methane from “escaping” (like a fugitive) into Mom Earth’s atmosphere.
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Last December, Rice Acquisition Corp II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) started by the Rice brothers (Danny, Toby, and Derek), announced a deal to acquire NET Power–an electric power developer with revolutionary new technology to capture every last molecule of carbon dioxide from natural gas-fired power plants (see 
New shale permits issued for May 29-Jun 4 in the Marcellus/Utica finally went higher again last week. There were 25 new permits issued, up from the dismal 8 new permits issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 13 new permits for Pennsylvania, 6 new permits for Ohio, and 6 new permits in West Virginia. EQT scored the most new permits with 7 issued in Greene County, PA. Close behind in the #2 position was Antero Resources, with 6 new permits issued in Ritchie County, WV.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Calif. will fall 21% short of power needed to meet 2045 EV mandate; NATIONAL: O&G companies jumping on hydrogen, but overrated; INTERNATIONAL: Macquarie group reveals oil market outlook; Russia ratifies agreement on natural gas supply with China.
Last week, the U.S. House and Senate voted to approve the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, to raise the debt ceiling. President Biden signed the bill on Saturday. A section in the bill forces federal government agencies and courts to complete all necessary authorizations to finish building the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Once a month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Last month the EIA predicted an average price at the Henry Hub of $2.91/MMBtu for 2023, and $3.72/MMBtu for 2024 (see 
Last week MDN brought you the news that Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) has begun to drill a geothermal and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) data collection well as part of a study being conducted by West Virginia University and the U.S. Dept. of Energy (see 
Glenn O. Hawbaker, Inc., long known for providing stone quarries and asphalt plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio, also provides civil construction services for shale well sites. In August 2021, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced a plea deal with Hawbaker to pay back $20 million in alleged “stolen wages” from over 1,000 Hawbaker employees (see 
Here we go again. The shale-hating Democrats of the Pennsylvania legislature have floated a resolution to “study” how much money the Commonwealth is losing by not imposing an obscene severance tax on top of the existing impact fee (which is a severance tax by another name). Every single year Tom Wolf occupied the governor’s chair (eight loooooong years), his budgets insisted on including a Marcellus-killing severance tax. And every single year, the Republican-controlled legislature wisely refused. With a new Democrat governor, Josh “do nothing” Shapiro, and with the Dems now controlling the House (by a single vote), they are at it again–hoping to enact a Marcellus-killing severance tax. The first step is to “study” it…
Russia is not only an evil actor by invading a neighbor and murdering innocent civilians (Ukraine), for years, Russia has been an evil actor by funding Big Green groups that target U.S. domestic energy production. An expose running in RealClearEnergy details how Russia has funded organizations that have hired “journalists” to write propaganda against American energy companies. This one will make your blood boil…
In March, environmental radical Pat McDonnell of PennFuture, the former Pennsylvania Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), along with his best friend THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, sued McDonnell’s former agency over permits the DEP issued to Williams to build the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project (see 
With a one-vote majority in the Pennsylvania House, the Democrats who run the House are stepping up their attacks on the oil and gas industry in the state. The latest attack is House Bill (HB) 652, which is aimed at blocking new permits to build or expand various projects–including gas-fired power plants and wastewater injection wells–in so-called environmental justice areas. The left defines environmental justice as any area with a certain percentage of blacks and Latinos, or an area with a lot of poor people (i.e., rural). So, environmental justice areas are pretty much anyplace in the entire state–because every location is either urban (with minorities) or rural (with poor folk). Heads I win, tails you lose.
Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) currently operates a gas-fired power plant in the Keasbey section of Woodbridge, NJ. The plant currently generates power for about 700,000 homes. In 2018, CPV proposed adding a second power plant at the same location (see 
It’s possible to track which institutional investors (big investors like BlackRock) are buying or selling shares in various companies by reviewing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form 13F filings. S&P Global Market Intelligence performed a 13F review of which companies bought, and which sold (and how much) shares of stocks for shale gas drillers during the first quarter of 2023. The topmost active shale gas driller having its stock purchased by institutional investors was Comstock Resources, which drills exclusively in the Haynesville Shale. The reason Comstock came out on top, postulates S&P, is because the Haynesville is located close to the Gulf Coast and LNG export plants. However, it was the rest of the list that interested us.