3 Groups Sue PA DEP, EQB to Block New VOC Conventional Regulation
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that as of Friday, a new regulation controlling volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, and by extension methane emissions, for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers went into effect (see PA DEP Decrees Onerous VOC Reg for Conventional O&G in Effect Now). We said in that post, “We’re guessing the conventional industry, which warned the DEP and EQB not to adopt the regulation, will end up suing to challenge it.” Turns out to be a prophetic statement. The three statewide organizations that represent PA’s conventional drillers filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Environmental Quality Board (EQB), challenging the legality and legitimacy of the new VOC regulation for conventional drillers.
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The front-month NYMEX futures contract (based on the price of gas trading at the Henry Hub) dropped like a rock yesterday–down 70 cents (-12.6%) to $5.58/MMBtu. The price has dropped for the past four trading days in a row. Some say it’s free fallin’. In total, the price has lost $1.66 (-22.9%) over the last four sessions. NYMEX trading during the day yesterday hit its lowest point since March of this year. Why? Mainly a warm short-term weather forecast, coupled with the continuing outage at the Freeport LNG export facility.
And just like that, the horse everyone thought was dead has come back to life and is leading the race. We’re talking about U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s so-called permitting reform bill to help save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The bill proposed by Manchin would bypass the clown judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals who are blocking it. Manchin got a pledge from his buddy Chuck Schumer to allow a vote on permitting reform in return for Manchin selling out the country by voting to pass the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (see 
We’re sure this post will not make some of our industry readers/friends happy. But we think it’s time to rip the scab off the festering ESG/Next Generation/Responsible Gas wound and expose it. As Joan Rivers used to say, Can we talk? What got us thinking about responsible gas certification was an announcement from Virginia Natural Gas that the company has entered into a deal with BP to buy “Next Generation Natural Gas” for resale to its customers. VNG will buy it from wells in the Louisiana Haynesville Shale. We asked ourselves these questions: What’s the likelihood that molecules of so-called responsible gas from Louisiana will actually travel all the way to Virginia? And if they do, what happens to those molecules once there?
We spotted an article about the left’s war on fossil energy, and how that war is causing economic chaos around the world. We disagree 100% with the premise of the article, which begins this way: “Climate change is a real and urgent problem. More than a century of carbon emissions is warming the planet and causing floods, droughts, fires and other cataclysmic events that are killing people, threatening livelihoods and upending economies.” However, the author goes on to say that the war on fossil fuels (which are, according to the author, the source of carbon emissions) is causing its own form of chaos. He makes some great points about the chaos that comes from not having a good transition plan in place to get us from fossil energy to so-called renewables.
In October, MDN brought you the news that the company created and backed by Dan Rice (and his brothers), called Archaea Energy, is selling itself to BP for $4.1 billion (see 
INTERNATIONAL: European gas consumption is 24% below the five-year average.
In September, EQT Corporation announced it is buying Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: 
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.
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 
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 
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 
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?