Hedge Fund Mgr Predicts $200/Barrel Oil, $10/Gal Gasoline in 2023
Here’s a sobering (and startling) prediction: Within the next year, crude oil will likely hit $200 a barrel, translating to $10 a gallon at the pump. It will result in protests and demonstrations across the country and around the world. That’s the prediction of veteran financier and hedge fund manager Salem Abraham, who founded Abraham Trading Company over 30 years ago. Abraham says the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) coupled with a chronic underinvesting in fossil energy companies is why the price of oil is about to go haywire.
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Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Last year Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” (anti-fossil fuel zealots) got amped up to oppose the rural project (see 
In March, MDN told you that the Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued a ruling against the now completed Mariner East 2 pipeline project, assessing a $51,000 fine on the project for work done near an apartment complex (see 
The State of Florida has jumped on the divest-the-diverstors bandwagon. We have no doubt that Larry Fink, founder and CEO of the world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, is now VERY concerned about the pushback he’s getting for pushing investors to divest from fossil energy companies. Two of the three largest states in the county (by population)–Texas and Florida–have decided to ban investments in funds that promote ESG–environmental, social, and governance. ESG is just another way of saying divest from fossil energy companies. And now the diverstors, like BlackRock and other Big Banks and Big Investment firms that divest, are themselves the targets for divestment. We love it!
BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American shale drilling arm of Banpu of Thailand (Banpu owns 96% of BKV), originally entered the American shale sector by investing over $500 million in 2016-2017 to buy existing Marcellus wells and acreage in northeast Pennsylvania. Over the past seven years, BKV has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV is now (with recent purchases) the largest natural gas producer in the Barnett Shale. The company is on a mission to be so-called net zero emissions (Scopes 1 & 2) by 2025. One of the ways the company plans to do it is by using ESG technology from Verde Co2 CCS, LLC.
Apparently, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf told a fib on Feb. 1 of this year when he said PA had received an initial $25 million cash infusion from the federal government’s new (so-called) infrastructure law for use in plugging orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells (see 
Using rational arguments and facts and science to make the case that natural gas and natgas pipelines benefit the environment is akin to spitting in the wind when talking with environmental leftists. But we suppose the effort must be made–at least for appearances. Such is the case in New Jersey, where representatives from several utility companies and an academic think tank patiently, rationally, and carefully lay out the case for how using natural gas and gas pipelines will help NJ achieve its so-called clean energy targets by 2050. The utility reps and think tank use the intellectual equivalent of baby talk so nutty lefties in the Garden State will understand what’s being said. Is it all just spitting in the wind? Probably.
Will oil and gas companies put their extra cash to good use on more fossil energy exploration and production? Or will they blow it on the myth of green energy? Powerhouse consulting and accounting firm Deloitte seems to think O&G will begin to invest more in “green” capital expenditures, raising it from the current 5% average to perhaps 30%. We think that’s a waste. Deloitte has just published a new report, “Striking the Balance: How and Where Will O&G Producers Deploy their Cash?” (full copy below), which examines how O&G companies can “play a key role over the next decade in creating synergy between energy security and energy transition, while helping commercialize essential low-carbon technologies.” Energy “transition” is a misnomer. Read today’s article/interview with Enterprise Products Partners.
Here’s a bit of news only one major news outlet (the Wall Street Journal) has covered: Last week Jennifer Granholm, hands down the most incompetent Secretary of Energy ever to hold the office, sent a letter to seven major refinery companies threatening them that if they don’t scale back exports of gasoline, diesel, and other liquid petroleum products, Granholm will have old dementia Joe whip up an executive order slapping a ban on such exports. She’s making them an offer they can’t refuse.
After several weeks of anemic permit numbers for Pennsylvania, last week PA came roaring back by issuing 30 permits to drill new shale wells. Some 12 of those permits went to Coterra Energy for two pads in Susquehanna County. EQT (aka Rice Drilling) received six permits for a single pad in Greene County, and Chesapeake Energy also received six permits split between two pads–one pad in Bradford County and the other in Lycoming County.