Shell/Equinor/US Steel Make Their Own Play for Hydrogen Hub
Looks like $2 billion is just too much of a temptation for Shell, Equinor (formerly known as Statoil), and U.S. Steel to resist. Those three companies have been a part of a joint effort with EQT, Williams, Southwestern Energy, and a few other companies in a group called Appalachian Energy Future (AEF), which was supposed to be the “one ring to rule them all” group aimed at enticing a hydrogen hub to one of the three Marcellus/Utica states (see EQT, Shell, Others Launch CCUS/Hydrogen Hub Initiative for OH-PA-WV). While Shell, Equinor, and U.S. Steel are not quitting AEF, the three together announced they would file their own application to attract the hydrogen hub (and its $2 billion) for themselves. Sounds kind of greedy, no? It also sounds kind of scattered and confusing.
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Now we know why Diversified Energy liked Traitor Joe Manchin’s sell-out Green New Deal law, also falsely referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act (see 
A recent survey commissioned by the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia Inc. (GO-WV) found that 81% of West Virginians support natural gas and oil drilling in the state. That is a staggering, overwhelming majority! Nearly as many (close to 80%) favor policies that increase domestic oil and gas drilling and the completion of pipeline projects, in order to ease inflation. Some 52% of West Virginians ranked inflation as the most important issue facing the state (the top vote-getter). Although the survey results don’t mention it, we wonder how many West Virginian’s are disappointed with Sen. Manchin for his role in increasing inflation with the recent Big Green bill (aka Inflation Reduction Act) signed into law with the help of Manchin?
Along with Harvard, Yale University used to be one of the top two higher ed schools in the country. Wow, how the mighty have fallen! Yale is a husk, a shell of what it once was. Yale now puts political ideology above science and generates garbage, calling it “research.” Yale is experiencing some major cognitive dissonance. At various points over the past decade, Yale researchers have claimed fracking does NOT contaminate water aquifers (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Kromer is named to OOGA post; NATIONAL: Berkshire Hathaway seeks to buy as much as 50 percent of Oxy; I like ESG—but not for the reason you think; As U.S. races toward 30 Bcf/d of LNG exports, what could it mean for upstream markets?; INTERNATIONAL: Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Europe to shut for three days; Europe’s gas price is now equivalent to $410 per barrel of oil.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for April through June 2022 (full copy below). There were 133 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 2Q22, an increase of 13 wells (10.8%) compared to 2Q21. However, natural gas production volume was 1,836 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2Q22, a slight decrease (-0.9%) from 2Q21. It is the second quarterly decrease in production in a row. It appears that maybe PA has hit a plateau for natural gas production.
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (
A new audit of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Orphan Well Program was released August 9 by the Auditor of State’s Ohio Performance Team (full copy below). The Ohio Auditor’s office reviews the operations of government agencies and programs and offers recommendations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Auditor of State Keith Faber said in the audit that ODNR is still spending only about half of the funding required to plug old wells. Faber said, “ODNR’s Orphan Well Program is moving in the right direction, but there’s still much work to do,” and “We need to pick up the pace.” It was a metaphorical kick in the seat of the pants.
Food & Water Watch (extremist radicals on the far-left spectrum) stirred up a small group of New Jersey residents to come out and protest a proposed electric generating plant to be located at the site of a current power plant in Woodbridge, NJ. Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) already operates one gas-fired power plant at the location. The plant currently powers about 700,000 homes. In 2018, CPV proposed adding a second power plant at the same location (see 
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project is 94% complete and in the ground. About the only thing left to build is a short 3.5-mile piece on federal land (Jefferson National Forest) and crossings either through or under several hundred creeks and swamps. We are almost there. And yet anti-fossil fuel zealots believe they can still stop the project and block it from ever finishing. We read yet another fawning ode to environmental zealots article about a small group gathering to commiserate about how they dream of stopping MVP, and it struck us, as it often does, how these people speak of themselves and their efforts in religious terms.
Pennsylvania issued seven new shale permits for the week of August 8-14, with two each going to EQT (in Greene County) and Chesapeake Energy (in Sullivan County). Ohio issued five new permits, with four of them going to Encino Energy (Harrison County). Finally, West Virginia issue five new permits with all of them going to Jay-Bee Oil & Gas (Tyler County).
Seneca Resources, a 100% subsidiary and the drilling arm of National Fuel Gas Company, announced on Tuesday that the company has achieved an “A” certification grade under the MiQ Standard for Methane Emissions Performance (MiQ Standard), the highest available certification level MiQ awards, for all of the company’s 1+ billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica. Seneca can now claim it produces responsible gas and the molecules can be traded/bundled on the MiQ Digital Registry.
It used to be that freedom and justice and capitalism were baked into our psyche via the U.S. Constitution. All of those things–freedom, justice, and capitalism–are rapidly disappearing. They are replaced with totalitarian statism. The people we “elect” actually think we serve them and that they tell us what we can and can’t do. Example: A pipeline expansion (looping pipe and expanding some compressor stations) by Williams in the Marcellus/Utica is now imperiled by authoritarians in New Jersey.