Natural Gas Shortage, High Prices Predicted for U.S. This Winter
U.S. natural gas prices closed at a fresh six-week low of $7.75/MMBtu yesterday. The Wall Street Journal says the natural gas market has lost its bullish momentum due to a lack of hurricanes off the Texas coast. U.S. production has reached triple digits for the first time ever, topping 100 Bcf/d, as we reported yesterday (see U.S. Natural Gas Production in Lower 48 Hits 100 Bcf/d!). European natgas prices continue to drop too, sinking as much as 8.8% to their lowest level in nearly two months. And yet, we spotted a prediction that prices are about to spike again this winter–perhaps to their highest levels yet.
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In early August, MDN reported that Marcellus driller Coterra Energy had made $1.2 billion in profit during the second quarter of 2022 (see 
A Democrat-led, partisan nonprofit calling itself Energy Future PA was launched yesterday. The anti-drilling former PA Auditor General, Eugene DePasquale (Democrat), is co-chair. The new group is also co-chaired by a RINO (Republican in Name Only)–former State Rep. Marguerite Quinn. Don’t get snookered by the fluffy platitudes from this organization. Make no mistake, Energy Future PA is partisan with a bent against shale energy.
EnerStar Solutions is a Canadian-based, privately-owned company providing goods and services to remote sites (i.e. drilling sites). The kinds of things EnerStar provides include accommodations, communications, power, lighting, and more. The company’s key areas of operation include the Marcellus/Utica, Permian, Delaware, and Bakken shale regions. EnerStar is growing. Yesterday the company announced it is buying Civeo Corporation’s U.S. wellsite service business for an undisclosed amount. Civeo is a global provider of hospitality services and workforce accommodations.
A shortage in LNG (liquefied natural gas) carriers is causing prices to rent/hire those carriers to skyrocket, and the high price of the carriers is being called a new “threat” to world energy supplies. So says a new article by Bloomberg. Natural gas traders and ship owners are warning that the ship shortage threatens to impact Asian economies that import oil and gas from the U.S., as they may find it difficult to get spare cargoes on short notice if the weather turns extremely cold this winter.
The left just never stops, never gives up in its quest to control EVERY aspect of your life. The gold ring, the pinnacle, is to control your energy sources. Hence the hoax of global warming, supposedly caused by mankind. A new “tool” concocted by the far-left Carbon Tracker organization, called the 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: ARC federal co-chair Gayle Manchin tours PA Wilds conservation shop; Vance challenges, Ryan defends record on energy policy; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas oil and gas employment still rising; NATIONAL: Fitch Solutions discusses gas to oil switching; There’s no celebrating the Inflation Reduction Act; Why U.S. shale producers aren’t riding to the rescue; VC interest in postcombustion carbon removal soars; INTERNATIONAL: German utilities close to long-term LNG deals with Qatar.
A group of roughly 60 landowners located in Fayette County, PA, have received a $5.5 million settlement from what was Chief Exploration and Development (now called Cyprus Exploration and Development) to compensate the landowners for leases signed in 2008. The landowners filed a class action lawsuit in 2011, claiming bonus and rent payments were not made.
In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus (27 Senators in all), filed a lawsuit in January 2021 against the DRBC accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law over the DRBC’s ban on fracking (see 
A major psychological milestone was hit this month for the first time. Natural gas production in the Lower 48 States passed 100 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). According to RBN Energy, Lower 48 dry gas production hit a record 100.1 Bcf/d on September 6. The experts at RBN delve into why this is such a remarkable event, and what it means. The short version is that demand for natural gas *here at home* (in the U.S.) is at record highs and shows no signs of diminishing.
Two New York City Councilmembers recently introduced a resolution to block the construction of gas vaporizer expansions in National Grid’s Greenpoint Newtown Creek facility. The resolution calls on the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny a permit, and for the state Public Service Commission to deny allowing National Grid to fund it. National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). Antis are trying to force National Grid to do just that–run out of natural gas, leaving citizens in the cold in the dead of winter.
Finally, a little honesty from the editorial pages of the New York Times. Yes, the Times still publishes fake news on a regular basis (their news operation cannot be trusted). However, one of their leftist opinion writers, Thomas L. Friedman, recently published a real eye-opener. Friedman says Putin believes he has found a cold war he can win–a war on energy. And the West will not win that war unless “the U.S. and its Western allies stop living in a green fantasy world that says we can go from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy by just flipping a switch.” Whoa! And then Friedman attacks the left’s attack on fossil energy, indicating it will be decades, at a minimum, before we are close to transitioning to energy sources that are not fossil-based.
According to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. natural gas producers are operating more drilling rigs now than they did when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Before the pandemic, the number of rigs operating in the United States had generally been declining. In Jan. 2020, the gas-focused rig count stood at 112. That number took a nose dive and hit a low of 68 rigs on July 24, 2020 (the lowest since 1987). But as of Sept. 9 of this year, Baker Hughes reports that 166 natural gas-focused rigs were operating in the U.S.