Biden EPA Restarts Corrupt Practice of Sue & Settle with Big Green
There is a practice called “sue and settle” used by swamp dwellers in the federal government, financed by taxpayers (you) that will make your blood boil. It’s not new. It’s been going on for years. Sue and settle was frequently used during the bad Obama years. When Donald J. Trump took over at the White House he brought in Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where sue and settle was the normal routine. Scott drained the swamp and stopped the practice. Guess what? Like a bad yeast infection, the swamp dwellers are back and they’re bringing back sue and settle to the EPA. Surprised? We aren’t.
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Last week Pennsylvania issued 21 new shale well permits, with Snyder Brothers grabbing seven, PennEnergy Resources getting six, and Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) receiving five. In each case, the permits for each company were for a single well pad. Ohio issued just three new permits last week, two for Ascent Resources and one for Southwestern Energy. West Virginia finally came back to life, issuing seven new shale permits last week. Six of the WV permits were for Antero Resources, one for Southwestern Energy.
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It’s been about 3½ years since Encino Energy in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board closed on buying Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica assets for $2 billion (see 
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more Marcellus gas to Westchester and New York City is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project involves upgrades at two existing compressor stations (in Pennsylvania), along with building a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County), just across the border and not far from Westchester County, NY. Radicalized fossil fuel haters at Food & Water Watch, one of the worst of the worst anti groups, is challenging the all-electric, no-emissions compressor station planned for Passaic County in New Jersey Supreme Court.
Since February 2020 EQT Corporation’s credit rating (for company-issued bonds) has been at the “junk” (i.e. non-investment grade) level. Two of the three top credit ratings agencies–Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings–recently upgraded EQT’s credit rating, returning it to investment grade. So far Moody’s has not followed, but we’re guessing it won’t be long before Moody’s upgrades EQT’s rating too.
Quick: Which country received the most LNG exports from the U.S. in 2021? China? Japan? Maybe Brazil? Nope. The country receiving the most of our LNG last year was (drum roll please)…South Korea. China was a close second (almost tied). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article yesterday summarizing U.S. LNG exports and which regions (Asia, Europe, Rest of World), and which countries within those regions, received our LNG exports. It’s an interesting read. We’ve scrounged around and found a table showing all U.S. natural gas exports–both LNG and pipeline.
Yesterday we reported on the Friday deal between the U.S. and the European Union to deliver more LNG to Europe (see 
Public company Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy less than a year ago, in May 2021, with a new board and new top management (see 
As we were researching background for our lead story today of a potential Gulfport Energy/Ascent Resources merger, we discovered we never reported on Gulport’s fourth quarter and full-year 2021 results. In 4Q21 Gulfport’s production was 1.07 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), virtually the same as 4Q20. Gulfport’s production numbers include both the Ohio Utica and the other play where Gulfport drills, the Oklahoma SCOOP. For the full year, Gulfport produced an even 1.0 Bcfe/d on average in 2021, versus 1.04 Bcfe/d in 2020–down just a tad.
The clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e. the 4th Circus) have done it again. Two weeks ago Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) asked the full court, all of the judges (called en banc) to rehear a couple of recent decisions by three of their clown members (see 
Because of constant court challenges, the Trump administration completed a redo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12), a general permit used in constructing pipelines, just prior to leaving office. From the beginning of the Biden administration, anti-fossil fuel fanatics have attacked NWP12, hoping they can cancel it or otherwise make it so onerous nobody will use it (see 
Depending on your news source, the Biden administration reached an agreement with the European Union last Friday for the U.S. to supply more LNG to the EU beginning this year. Other news sources say it will be next to impossible for the U.S. to ship any more LNG to the EU this year. Yet other news sources (leaning to the far left) point out the agreement actually talks about the EU figuring out ways to *decrease* their natural gas (and LNG) usage. So what, exactly, was the agreement reached last week?