Alex Epstein Makes the Case for a Fossil Fuel Future
In September 2016, MDN editor Jim Willis had the good fortune and pleasure of hearing a keynote address from philosopher and author Alex Epstein at the Shale Insight conference in Pittsburgh (see Highlights from 2016 Shale Insight, Day Two – Trump!). Alex is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” We were so impressed with his talk, we invited Alex to a webinar for the MDN audience (watch it here: Webinar Recording: The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels). Alex recently published a new book, called “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less.” We have a summary of his arguments in that must-read book.
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INTERNATIONAL: Oil fell with talks of OPEC excluding Russia from oil production deal; Fear of failure crippling oil and gas workers.
Last week the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2022 (full copy below). There was 136 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 1Q22, an increase of nine wells (7.1%) compared to 1Q21. However, natural gas production volume was 1,851 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 1Q22, a slight decrease (-0.6%) from 1Q21. It is the first quarterly decrease in production in over a year.
The largest private investment in the state of West Virginia in history, not to mention the largest investment for the company making it, Nucor Steel, is happening because of abundant, cheap, Marcellus/Utica natural gas. Nucor is building a $2.7 billion new sheet steel mill in Mason County, WV, largely due to locally sourced and affordable energy.
The Bidenistas at the Dept. of Interior breathlessly announced the agency is (finally) releasing $33 million to plug 277 orphaned oil and gas wells across the country located on federal lands. The average price per plugging is $119,000. Spending $33 million to plug wells on federal lands is chump change compared to the $4.7 billion allocated for plugging old wells under the so-called Biden infrastructure bill. Why is the government paying $119K to plug wells that normally cost maybe $50,000 to plug? We’ll answer that question with another question. Why does the government pay $400 for a hammer it could buy at Lowes for $18?
In his first two days in office, Joe Biden declared war on the oil and gas industry. One of the first things he did was to revive an interagency working group on the “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions and directed the issuance of an “interim” cost (see 
Fighting back against the campaign by the left to defund fossil energy companies is winning. It is the divestors, companies like BlackRock, that now face the ash heap of history as states like Texas and West Virginia are pulling investments with banks and hedge funds that advocate divesting from fossil energy. Companies like BlackRock are trying to have it both ways, claiming they still invest in fossil energy. But their words (and actions) expose them as frauds. They don’t fool TX and WV and others who have decided to divest from the divestors. The result is that so-called ESG investing (investing in companies that pledge allegiance to the flag of ESG over profits) is beginning to crash and burn.
MDN will not publish on Friday, May 27, nor on Monday, May 31. Jim is taking Friday off in preparation for a wedding happening in his family. Monday is, of course, the Memorial Day holiday. A shout out to all of our currently serving and former veterans, and remembrance for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. They are not forgotten.
We are on the cusp of seeing the NYMEX Henry Hub futures price close above $9/MMBtu. Yesterday it closed at $8.97/MMBtu. Will today be the day it goes above $9? Probably. The price hit $9.40 during intraday trading yesterday but slid back down the hill just a bit before the closing bell. We are now at 14-year highs for the NYMEX price of gas. We’re still nowhere near the all-time high of close to $15.78 hit in December 2005. The scary thought is that we may well exceed the old record at some point in the next six months (see 
We spotted a story on The Motley Fool investor’s website yesterday noting that several Marcellus/Utica publicly-traded drillers saw “double-digit” increases in their share price just yesterday, for a single day. The article highlights both Range Resources and Southwestern Energy. We started nosing around to see how the stock price for all of the big publicly-traded M-U drillers has performed this year, from the beginning of the year. It was an eye-opener. ALL of them are up from the beginning of the year. Most are up at least 75% in value since Jan. 1. A few have doubled in value, now up more than 100% since Jan. 1. We have the list below for how each one performed. Welcome to the bull market in oil and gas!
We have mixed emotions about Elliott Management, a so-called activist investment firm. On the one hand, Elliott assisted the Rice boys in their takeover of EQT in July 2019, which turned out to be a very positive thing (see 
The International Gas Union (IGU), Snam, and Rystad Energy partnered to produce and have just released the Global Gas Report 2022 (GGR). According to the authors, if the world wants to limit mythical global warming to 1.5C and fulfill so-called net-zero ambitions by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2025. (You know we don’t believe global warming bullcrapus, but bear with us here.) The GGR (full copy below) says the best, most realistic way to reduce GHG emissions and hit those targets involves–yep–natural gas. In fact, natgas will, says the report, play a “critical role” in decarbonization initiatives.