EPA Makes Another Attempt to Regulate O&G via Waters of US
The Barack Hussein Obama administration went crazy with over-regulation in many areas. One of them was to redefine “waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) as everything down to, no exaggeration, mud puddles (see EPA Power Grab: Redefines Waters of the U.S. to Include Everything). When Donald Trump took office, he set about to correct some of the insane abuses of the Obama era, including WOTUS. He finally got it fixed (see EPA & Army Corps Publish Final WOTUS Regs – Obama Overreach Fixed). The Bidenistas have taken up the cause once again. Radicals at the EPA announced a new rule last week aimed at re-regulating all waters once again, putting power over just about everything (including oil and gas drilling) into the federal government’s hands via WOTUS.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Casey Boyd named Steel Nation VP of Business Development; NATIONAL: Natural gas up 5%, after more than 50% tumble over 3 weeks; Goldman Sachs says warm winter weather a risk to gas price view; Why U.S. natural gas liquids production is surging; INTERNATIONAL: Canada adds 100+ rigs.
We love this story because it’s driving the left NUTS! In December, we told you about Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 (subsequently passed), a bill that expands drilling in Ohio state parks AND officially designates natural gas as a “green” form of energy (see 
Last November, the state of Pennsylvania decided to endorse a private industry application (by Shell and Equinor) instead of doing the hard work of submitting its own official application to attract a $1 billion hydrogen hub (see 
West Virginia is taking the lead in a coalition to apply for (and build) a regional hydrogen hub, funded by taxpayers as provided for in the so-called Biden infrastructure bill. Some 200 organizations (universities, businesses, trade associations, etc.) have joined the WV effort, called Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), including the State of Ohio (see 
Given our stories today about hydrogen hubs, it seems like a good time to revisit the topic of “what is a hydrogen hub,” a “clean hub,” and what do all of the supposed colors of hydrogen that are thrown around really mean? Energywire recently published an article that answers five questions about “clean” hydrogen. The author says hydrogen’s uses, merits, and drawbacks as a climate tool remain “opaque” to some, including much of the public. Let’s clear up some of the opaqueness, shall we?
As we told you last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has a new “acting” Chairman, Willie Phillips (see 
A group of landowners in Harrison and Doddridge counties (in West Virginia) sued Antero Resources, claiming the company had deducted post-production costs from royalties not allowed under the leases they had signed. Last year, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruled mostly in favor of the landowners. Antero appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit). Yesterday, the judges of the 4th Circuit issued their ruling (full copy below). Nobody got everything they wanted–we’d call it a split decision. However, Antero did win the right to make deductions in certain circumstances.
Antero Midstream hired Veolia Water Technologies to build and operate a state-of-the-art frack wastewater recycling facility in Doddridge County, WV, which began operations in 2017 (see 
The “front month” (Feb. 2023) NYMEX Henry Hub price for natural gas took another nosedive yesterday, hitting its lowest price ($3.72/MMBtu) since Jan. 4, 2022. Why the drop? Weather, or course. But also expectations. Natural gas commodities trading is a strange art. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported yesterday that withdrawal from underground gas inventories was 221 billion cubic feet (Bcf) over the past week. The five-year average for the same period is 98 Bcf. Holy smokes! That’s a HUGE drawdown. And yet the market went the other way and crashed the price–because traders expected the drawdown to be even bigger–around 240 Bcf.
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. In December 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see 
Most of the public and many of the private companies that drill in the Marcellus and Utica for natural gas either already have been, or are pursuing, certification of their operations as being “responsible.” Three primary standards authorities currently exist–MiQ, Project Canary, and Equitable Origin–to certify that a company’s natural gas was extracted and pipelined with low methane emissions. There’s even a fourth certification scheme underway by Williams, Coterra Energy, and Dominion Energy (see