Southwestern Energy 4Q Update: Aims to Produce 5 Bcf/d in 2022
Southwestern Energy, which has become a natural gas-producing behemoth second only to EQT Corporation, issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update on Friday. The company also issued projections for 2022. Southwestern produced 4.27 Bcfe/d (billion cubic feet equivalent per day) of natural gas and equivalents in 4Q21 across both plays where it operates–the Marcellus/Utica in the northeast and the Haynesville in the Gulf Coast region. Of that 4.27 Bcfe/d, some 3.14 Bcfe/d (74%) came from the M-U.
Read More “Southwestern Energy 4Q Update: Aims to Produce 5 Bcf/d in 2022”
The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties for the purposes of assessing property taxes. The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule last summer that was, quite frankly, a mess. The rule created a complex system that is currently mired in controversy with both drillers and landowners confused about how much of a tax bill they will owe this year. Last week the WV House of Delegates worked on and pushed along a compromise bill to try and fix the mess created last year (see 
In May 2017, Murrysville Township (Westmoreland County) struck a zoning compromise with local drillers on the distance of setbacks (see 
In late October Nacero announced a $6 billion gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery, to be built on the site of a former coal mine in Newport Township and Nanticoke in Luzerne County, PA (see 
Gene Barr, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, unloaded on Joe Biden and his inept energy policies in a recent op-ed in which Barr says it’s time for U.S. energy policy to stop empowering Russia. In addition to more oil drilling and oil pipelines, Barr advocates for more natural gas drilling and more natural gas pipelines here in the Marcellus/Utica. Do you want to help Europe? Stop blocking American oil and gas, President Biden!
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Utica Shale to create outdoor welding lab; Abandoning fossil fuels irrational; NATIONAL: Biden admin vows to avoid Russia oil sanctions; Should we grow up about energy?; Unleashing U.S. oil industry offers Biden path to avoid energy crisis; INTERNATIONAL: The biggest problem with the green energy revolution; Linde develops world’s first plant to extract hydrogen from natgas pipelines; Nuclear, coal, LNG: ‘no taboos’ in Germany’s energy about-face.
Will this finally be the year that West Virginia has a new forced pooling bill passed into law? Quite possibly, given the supersonic speed with which Senate Bill (SB) 694 was introduced and, without any discussion, passed through the Senate Finance Committee (at the last possible moment), and sent on to the full Senate for a vote. Of course, the bill still has to go to the WV House. SB 694 is complicated, but this time the bill appears to have widespread support, not only from drillers but from royalty owners too.
A second bill related to mineral and landowner rights holders rocketed through the West Virginia Senate, passing the full Senate by 29-5 vote on Wednesday. Senate Bill (SB) 650 tweaks a previously passed bill signed into law in 2018 concerning co-tenancy (see 
Coterra Energy, the result of Permian oil driller Cimarex Energy buying out and merging with Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas, issued its first fully combined quarterly update yesterday. The two companies merged at the beginning of fourth quarter 2021 (see 
The Washington County, PA Chamber of Commerce held its State of The Economy event yesterday. One of the speakers, Denise Brinley (former executive director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Energy) said that southwestern Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh region is a prime prospect to take advantage of establishing a $2 billion hydrogen hub. Western PA is in the “bullseye” of why funding was included in the recent federal infrastructure bill to establish four such hubs nationally, according to Brinley.
Because of the cold weather in the northeast and in other parts of the country in the first part of February, natural gas production in the U.S. took a nosedive, declining to roughly 85.8 Bcf/d. With the warmer weather unthawing the freeze-offs that happened, a few days ago production soared over 94.6 Bcf/d–the highest it has been in seven weeks. According to S&P, with the coldest days of winter behind us, all the signs are in place for natgas production to continue growing over the coming weeks and months.
Interstate pipelines are pipelines that cross state boundaries. They are regulated (approved by) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Each year new pipelines are added, or existing pipelines expanded, to flow ever-more natural gas across our great country. Some years those additions of new capacity are higher, and some years lower. We think it’s no coincidence that in 2021, the first full year of Joe Biden’s assault on the oil and gas industry, new pipeline capacity to flow natural gas grew at its lowest rate since the bad Obama years.
Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. The update includes a preview of what’s ahead for 2022. Among the blockbuster news is that after five years, Range, which has long specialized in drilling “wet gas” wells in southeastern Pennsylvania, is returning to northeastern PA this year to drill some dry gas wells. Why? The economics are there, says Dennis Degner, Range’s COO and top driller.