Mixed Signals: M-U Forward Prices Stagnant as Cash Prices Rise
We’re seeing mixed signals for the price of natural gas in the Marcellus/Utica and where it may be heading in the near future. One set of signals is the day-ahead cash price (“spot price”)–the deals to sell physically-delivered natural gas at a certain price at a particular hub/location. The spot price for M-U gas at hubs like the Eastern Gas South (widely viewed as the benchmark in the M-U region), is up. But the forward price is, if anything, down a bit.
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has banned the spreading of conventional oil and gas brine for any purpose on its over 6,500 miles of roads in PA State Forests. A majority of those roads are dirt and gravel. The ban also applies to all State Park roads (although most of those roads are paved and don’t need water for dust suppression, so it’s an empty gesture).
Midstream giant Williams’ chief operating officer, Michael Dunn, told an industry conference in Houston, TX yesterday that Joe Biden is “overlooking” the role natural gas can place in reducing emissions and decarbonizing the U.S. And that’s a big mistake. Dunn’s sentiment (in our words) is that the Bidenistas are unwilling to accept half-a-loaf now and instead prefer no loaf at all, which leads to more harmful emissions, not less.
The haughty and arrogant John Kerry is at it again. Kerry (who looks like Lurch on the Adams Family) spoke at a so-called “climate event” at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Kerry is Joe Biden’s special climate envoy. In his speech, Kerry had the audacity to warn other nations they should not invest in natural gas infrastructure because it causes “climate change”–whatever the heck that is. The climate always changes, but leftists like Kerry don’t seem to understand that concept.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Wolf administration gives $2.7M to cleaner transportation projects, including fossil fuels; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Sabine Pass sees record LNG flows; VCEA makes Virginia’s electric grid dangerously unreliable; NATIONAL: U.S. oil CEOs offer opposing views on crude output growth; INTERNATIONAL: Royal Dutch Shell changes name; Europe’s crazy war on natural gas.
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. On Friday Schlumberger issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 earnings report, holding a conference call to discuss results. Of particular interest to us was information detailing Schlumberger’s work for M-U driller CNX Resources.
In December, Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP), a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, filed a proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to implement a “responsibly sourced natural gas (RSG) supply aggregation pooling service” at select locations across the TGP system (see 
In May 2021 S&P Global Market Intelligence ran an article on which Marcellus/Utica drillers are likely targets to be acquired, and which drillers are doing the targeting (see 
Last year Big Green lobbyists using the City of Oberlin, Ohio contested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the Enbridge/DTE Energy NEXUS pipeline, a a $2 billion, 255-mile pipeline from the Ohio Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada (see 
Two weeks ago MDN told you that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf swiftly vetoed a PA Senate resolution sent to him that would block the state from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), nothing more than a carbon tax that won’t actually reduce carbon emissions (see 
As part of its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts U.S. fossil fuel production to continue rising in both 2022 and 2023, surpassing production in 2019, to reach a new record high in 2023. So much for the “big transition” to so-called renewables! The biggest share of fossil fuel production is, you guessed it, natural gas. EIA says natgas production will increase 3% this year, and 2% next year.
Democrats in Congress say new federal powers are needed to prevent major energy disruptions like the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline last May. Specifically, the Dems want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to impose “basic standards” for natural gas pipeline reliability and security. The Dems claim FERC can enforce reliability standards regarding electricity delivery and other matters, but the agency lacks such authority when it comes to regulating pipelines. Is that true?
New England–Massachusetts and Maine in particular–dodged a major bullet on Thursday when Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners voted 5-0 to NOT overturn a permit for the already up-and-running compressor station in Weymouth, Mass. The Weymouth compressor station was the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project that was years in the making. The compressor went online in January 2021 (see 
Earlier this week West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore announced the WV Board of Treasury Investments, which manages the state’s roughly $8 billion operating funds, will no longer use BlackRock Inc. investment funds as part of its banking transactions (see