Nobody Likes Proposed Changes to PA DEP Enviro Justice Policy
In March MDN brought you the bad news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) had floated a draft reworking of its so-called environmental justice policy (see PA DEP Goes Hard Left with New “Enviro Justice” Policy Revisions). Under onerous new regulations proposed by the DEP, Big Green groups will be able to more easily challenge and block shale drilling and pipelines, accusing such projects of violating “environmental justice” policies. With the official comment period on the proposed new regs now closed, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has read through the comments and discovered the new policy is universally opposed and panned, by both the environmental left (saying it doesn’t go far enough) and by the shale industry (saying it goes WAY too far).
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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.
On Monday MDN brought you the news that Joe Biden is renominating Richard “Dick” Glick to serve yet another undistinguished term at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
Just last week MDN told you we will, from now on, bring you new permit data for the previous week on Fridays. Yet here it is Thursday and we’re sharing the permit data for last week. What gives? MDN and its author, Jim Willis, are taking a break Friday (tomorrow) and next Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. Well, we’re taking Monday off for the holiday. We’re taking Friday off because there’s a wedding in Jim’s family this weekend. There are preparations to make, and celebrations to partake in. So we’re bringing you the permit data today, on Thursday. Speaking of which, there were 24 new permits issued last week, with 14 of them going to Pennsylvania, seven to Ohio, and three to West Virginia. We break it down below.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Stop New York’s climate madness before it drives electric rates into orbit; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Why Bill Spadea opposes plans to eliminate natgas in NJ; NATIONAL: Cheniere and Posco pen long-term LNG supply deal; Former energy chief Rick Perry touts fossil fuels, nuclear; ESG’s power grows as banker is canceled for talking sense on climate change; INTERNATIONAL: Finland leases floating LNG terminal for 10 years to break free from Russian gas.
The radicals of the Clean Air Council (CAC) are claiming a (very small) victory in their campaign against processing NGLs at the Marcus Hook refinery located near Philadelphia. CAC is CACkling that they have forced Energy Transfer, builder of the mighty Mariner East (ME) pipeline system (a pipeline that CAC couldn’t stop), to back down on how permits are issued for the Marcus Hook facility–the place where NGLs from ME end up for processing and loading for export. The end result is…well…not much. Nothing will really change. The same volume of NGLs will still flow to Marcus Hook, and the same volume of NGLs will be loaded onto ships and exported to other countries. The only thing that changes is that ET spends more time and pays more money to obtain a single large permit instead of two separate, smaller permits. We’ll explain.
Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) is a “top 10” shale driller in West Virginia, headquartered in Morgantown, WV (see 
When a pipeline company considers whether or not to build a new pipeline, the company conducts an “open season”–a time when drillers (producers), traders, buyers, and others who want guaranteed capacity along that pipeline can sign long-term contracts. Such contracts guarantee pipeline companies will be able to make back the considerable amount of money they have to spend to build the pipeline. What happens when those 5-, 10-, and 20-year contracts expire?
In a post on EIA’s Today in Energy, the now-politicized EIA attempts to prop up the tattered reputation of the Biden administration with respect to natural gas using the headline, “FERC approves new natural gas pipeline projects to increase U.S. exports.” We excitedly read the post hoping to spot a project or two that had escaped our notice, something that would end up flowing more Marcellus/Utica molecules to other regions. It wasn’t until the very last sentence we discovered the truth that even EIA could not ignore: “In 2021, we estimate that the United States added 7.44 Bcf/d of new pipeline capacity, the lowest amount added to interstate transmission since 2016.” In other words, new pipeline additions haven’t been this low since the last days of the Lord Obama administration.
You have to hand it to West Virginia Joe Manchin, he doesn’t much care what the snobby intelligentsia think about him. For whatever reason Manchin is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It’s an event where all the smarter-than-you-are people go to pronounce they’re smarter than you are. According to the WEF website, “The World Economic Forum brings together decision-makers from across society to work on projects and initiatives that make a real difference.” Errr, right. Most of the attendees are fossil fuel haters, so it was with interest we read Manchin’s comments at Davos in front of the haters, sticking up for fossil energy.
For the better part of a decade, MDN has brought you stories about shale development in the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD), an agency formed in 1933 to help control flooding and promote water conservation in the Muskingum River watershed area of Ohio, an area that covers 8,000 square miles. Over the years MWCD has leased thousands of acres for Utica Shale drilling and cut deals to sell water to drillers for fracking. It’s been a while since the last lease announcement. MWCD has just completed negotiations to lease more of its land for drilling. We have all the details.