Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Dec 6, 2022
INTERNATIONAL: European gas consumption is 24% below the five-year average.
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Bidenistas at FTC Probing EQT Deal to Buy Tug Hill’s WV Assets
In September, EQT Corporation announced it is buying Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: EQT Buys Tug Hill’s THQ Appalachia for $5.2 Billion). The deal adds 90,000 acres and 800 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) of production to EQT’s existing, massive, portfolio. Tug Hill and private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners jointly own THQ Appalachia I, LLC (THQA), which is Tug Hill’s subsidiary focused on drilling in the Marcellus, Utica, and Upper Devonian plays in WV. The radicals who now head the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are requesting more information than the mountains already provided–signaling the Bidenistas may try to block the sale using red tape.
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3Q22 PA Shale Production Up Slightly from 2Q22, Down from 3Q21
This morning the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for July through September 2022 (full copy below). There were 158 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 3Q22, an increase of 47 wells (+42%) compared to 3Q21. However, natural gas production volume was 1,878 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 3Q22, a slight decrease (-0.8%) from 3Q21. It is the third quarterly decrease in production in a row (comparing the same quarters year-over-year). However, 3Q22 production was up slightly (+1.4%) from 2Q22.
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Accidents | Cambria County | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Storage
Feds Investigate Equitrans Storage Well Leak in Cambria County, PA
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas Storage Well in Cambria County, PA is Leaking). It took two weeks (14 days) for the leak to get fixed, after it had leaked roughly 1.4 billion cubic feet into the air (see Storage Well Leak Fix in Cambria County Failed, Leaked 1.4 Bcf). On Friday, we told you the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is conducting a top to bottom review of how it regulates storage facilities following that incident (see PA DEP Doing “Top to Bottom” Review of Gas Storage After Big Leak). The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is joining the investigation.
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PA DEP Decrees Onerous VOC Reg for Conventional O&G in Effect Now
Last week the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a part of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), voted to adopt a last-minute, rushed-through-in-a-hurry regulation to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions (and by extension, methane emissions) from conventional oil and gas operations in the state (see PA EQB Approves Onerous VOC/Methane Reg for Conventional O&G). The DEP, attempting to beat a Dec. 16 deadline from the federal government, declared the rushed “emergency” regulation was officially in force as of Friday, Dec. 2. Nothing like the heavy hand of government to beat you over the head, eh?
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Freeport LNG Changes Restart Date from Mid- to End-December
Three weeks ago, Freeport LNG, which has been out of commission since early June, changed the target date it would restart from November to mid-December (see Freeport LNG Announces Fix-it Work 90% Done, Restart in Mid-Dec). That wasn’t the first time the company moved the restart date, and (it seems), not the last. On Friday, Freeport announced another delay. The company now says feed gas will not flow to the facility until the end of December.
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TVA Recommends Replacing Cumberland Coal Plant w/Natural Gas
TVA Cumberland Coal-Fired Power Plant The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. One year ago, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see TVA Investing $1B to Build New Natgas-Fired Electric Plants). Good news! On Friday, TVA recommended moving forward with replacing one of the six–a coal-fired plant located near Cumberland City, Tennessee–with a natural gas combined-cycle power plant. TVA wisely selected natural gas over unreliable, intermittent (and very expensive) solar power.
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Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Statewide WV | West Virginia
Gun-Toting WV Judge in EQT Royalty Lawsuit Publicly Admonished
Just last week, we told you that a West Virginia Circuit Court judge who allegedly waved and pointed a gun at an attorney for EQT Corporation during a hearing about a case brought against EQT by landowners for improper deductions of post-production expenses from their royalty payments had resigned (see Gun-Toting Judge in Landowner/EQT Royalty Lawsuit Resigns). We now know why. The WV Judicial Investigation Commission (JIC) has publicly admonished the judge. He cannot, as part of an agreement with the JIC, serve as a judge in WV again.
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Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Dec 5, 2022
NATIONAL: API rips Biden’s energy policy, warns of ‘major’ crisis in next few weeks; USA oil and gas jobs are still in short supply; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC slashes oil output by most since 2020.
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Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA
Outgoing Sen. Toomey Introduces “Save MVP” Pipe Permitting Bill
This one came right out of left field, and we didn’t see it coming. Totally unexpected. Yesterday, outgoing U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania, introduced a bill to reform pipeline permitting. The bill specifically approves and would push through final construction for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a pipeline that doesn’t even touch PA (it starts in Wetzel County, WV, and ends in Pittsylvania County, VA). The bill was concurrently introduced in the House by Congressman Mike Kelly, also from PA. Weird. Does this bill stand even a remote chance of passing before Congress adjourns and the next Congress takes over in early January?
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation
Radicals Request Gov’t Slows Down Review for Final 6% of MVP
A group of 40 so-called environmental groups (all of them leftist radicals) is doing its best to defeat the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The groups sent a letter yesterday to officials at the U.S. Dept. of Interior, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), asking those agencies to stretch out the process of granting new permits (for the THIRD time) to complete MVP by as long as possible. The radicals want a 30-day public scoping period, for starters, so they can repeat their lies once again. They’ve already had their say multiple times for many months–they don’t need another 30-day slot now.
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Boom! BlackRock Loses $2 BILLION from Florida re ESG
This is getting serious–for woke investment firm BlackRock, a company that demands companies avoid using fossil energy in order to combat global warming. BIG states controlled by Republicans have had enough of BlackRock’s anti-fossil energy activism and are fighting back. In August, Texas, the second largest state (by population) in the country, announced the state’s public pension funds and government agencies are divesting from BlackRock and nine other companies (see TX Blacklists BlackRock & 9 Others – State Pension Funds to Divest). A few weeks later, Florida, the third most populous state in the country, announced it too would divest (see Florida Follows WV, TX in Banning Investments in Woke ESG Funds). It’s now happening. Yesterday, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer announced he is beginning to divest a whopping $2 billion from BlackRock, the largest such divestment over ESG (environment, social, governance) issues–ever.
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PA DEP Sec Punts Revised Regs for Conventional Drillers to Shapiro
Updates for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers, both environmental protection standards and waste handling standards (two different updates), will now fall to the incoming Josh Shapiro administration. So says the Acting Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski. In other words, Klapkowski and his boss, Gov. Tom Wolf, are punting these important updates to the anti-drilling Shapiro. Washing their hands of it.
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Accidents | Cambria County | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Storage
PA DEP Doing “Top to Bottom” Review of Gas Storage After Big Leak
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas Storage Well in Cambria County, PA is Leaking). It took two weeks (14 days) for the leak to get fixed, after it had leaked roughly 1.4 billion cubic feet into the air (see Storage Well Leak Fix in Cambria County Failed, Leaked 1.4 Bcf). The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is currently conducting a “top to bottom” review of how it regulates storage facilities following that incident.
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USFWS Reclassifies Northern Long-Eared Bat as Endangered
In early 2015, MDN told you the then-Obama administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) did a disservice to not only the drilling industry, but the wind industry, farmers, and the construction industry, when it listed the northern long-eared bat as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (see US Fish & Wildlife Fixes Wrong Problem for Northern Long-Eared Bat). Now it’s even worse. On Tuesday, the Biden USFWS issued a final rule to reclassify the northern long-eared bat as endangered, moving the designation to its highest level.
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Antero Resources | Bradford County | Cameron County | Carroll County | Chesapeake Energy | Doddridge County | Encino Energy | Energy Companies | Harrison County | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Seneca Resources | Weekly Permits | West Virginia
17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Nov 21-27
Last week (Nov. 21-27) the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells slumped to 17 from the prior week’s 26. In Pennsylvania, 12 permits were issued, eight to Seneca Resources (one pad) in Cameron County, and four to Chesapeake Energy (one pad) in Bradford County. In Ohio, four permits were issued to Encino Energy, one in Carroll County and three (one pad) in Harrison County. And West Virginia at least received a single new permit, for Antero Resources in Doddridge County, after getting skunked the previous week.
Read More “17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Nov 21-27”