Northern Oil & Gas Continues to Sniff for Deals in the Marcellus
In February 2021, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc., a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced it had purchased 64,000 net acres producing ~120 MMcfe/d (million cubic feet equivalent per day) in the Marcellus/Utica from Reliance Industries Limited (see Northern O&G Buys 64K Acres of RIL’s Non-Op M-U Assets for $250M). According to Northern’s most recent quarterly update, production from the company’s M-U assets increased by 11% and now makes up 18% of total production for the company. Even more interesting: Northern continues to sniff around the M-U looking for more deals.
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Are Pioneer Natural Resources, Devon Energy, and ConocoPhillips out of their cotton-pickin’ minds?! Those three U.S.-based oil and gas majors have voluntarily given up control of the future of their companies to the United Nations by agreeing to participate in a U.N. program that tracks methane emissions. This is how it works: The U.N. sets the standard and then gets suckers to join it voluntarily. Later, when the standard has been accepted and most companies use it, the U.N. will then bring the hammer down, expanding the standard, making it so restrictive that oil and gas companies can’t follow it. At that point, those who are enrolled in the standard can’t do anything about it. If a company leaves the program, it will be ostracized and no one will buy its oil and gas. The smart thing to do is to tell the U.N., a non-U.S. entity, to get lost.
In July, MDN told you about the newest chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO), the Ohio chapter (see 
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A company called Strive, an Ohio-based asset management firm formed with the backing of two billionaires–Bill Ackman and Peter Thiel–is on a mission to educate and influence companies away from ESG obsession. In July, we told you about Strive and that the company, a counterweight to woke lefty funds like BlackRock, had already raised $20 million (see 
As of 2035, you won’t be able to buy a gasoline-powered vehicle in Massachusetts. Beginning soon (next year?), some 10 Massachusetts municipalities that have passed a ban on connecting new buildings to natural gas lines will implement those bans, as a test project. Both measures are part of a bill recently signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Democrat who pretends to be a Republican. What’s below a Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO)? Perhaps a Democrat-in-Practice-Without-Actual-Designation (DIPWAD)?
NATIONAL: We’ve made it nearly impossible to build in America; This is $93 billion in direct attacks on fossil fuels and energy independence; INTERNATIONAL: Extinction Rebellion spawns another splinter group planning to block streets.
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the parent company for Seneca Resources and Empire Pipeline, recently issued its latest update for the quarter ending June 30 (NFG’s third fiscal quarter, everyone else’s second quarter). NFG is a truly integrated company, including drilling, pipelines, and a utility company serving end-user customers. The company made $108 million in profit for the quarter, mostly driven by its upstream (drilling) unit Seneca Resources. In fact, upstream/drilling represented half (50%) of NFG’s revenues in 3Q22.
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
In early February, MDN told you about an industry-led group collaborating to attract one of four $2 billion hydrogen hubs to the Marcellus/Utica region provided for in the so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) two Republican members, Mark Christie and James Danly, sent a letter to Vanguard Group asking the company for detailed information about how it throws its weight around with the companies it invests in. Specifically, the two FERC commissioners want to know if Vanguard, with some $8.5 trillion (!) under management, is guilty of forcing local electric utility companies to avoid using or buying electricity that comes from natural gas power plants, under the excuse of lowering so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) reporting website finally fixed whatever problem was plaguing it (this time), so we now have the permit report from August 1-7. Pennsylvania only issued seven new permits during that time, with three going to Range Resources in Washington County and three going to Southwestern Energy in Susquehanna County. Ohio issued a single new permit to Southwestern in Monroe County. And West Virginia issued five new permits, with four of the five going to EQT in Wetzel County.
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon issued its second quarter 2022 update earlier this week. The company’s Marcellus net gas production was 2.324 Bcf (billion cubic feet) in total, not per day, during 2Q22. That number is down from 2.548 Bcf in 2Q21.