Can’t Miss! Jan. 20 Webinar on M-U Shale Industry Outlook for 2022
The Shale POWER initiative provides technical assistance and business support to small and medium manufacturers and enterprises seeking to expand business, production, and jobs in the expanding shale gas and downstream manufacturing sectors in Appalachia. Shale POWER is led by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and managed by Catalyst Connection, a southwestern PA economic development organization dedicated to serving manufacturers. Tomorrow is a must-attend webinar, just a half-hour long, featuring three experts from the Shale POWER team: Katie Klaber, Matt Henderson, and Tom Reed. The topic: Development opportunities for shale energy in the Marcellus/Utica in 2022.
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Last week 18 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica, down from 24 the week before. Pennsylvania had the most new permits with 12, mostly in the northeastern part of the state in Lycoming and Susquehanna counties. Ohio had four permits evenly divided between Columbiana and Harrison counties. West Virginia had just two lonely permits, one in Lewis and one in Wetzel counties.
A quick note to MDN readers to let you know that the software plugin we use to display PDF files is currently not functioning properly. When viewing a post with a PDF embedded the first page of the file should show immediately. It currently takes one to two minutes for the file to display. However, the file name is displayed and if you click on it, the full file should download to your computer and allow you to view it. We are working on a fix for this issue.
EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the United States, announced last Friday that all of its natural gas produced in Washington and Greene counties in Pennsylvania (the majority of its production, some 4 Bcf/d) is now officially certified as “responsibly produced” gas by two different certification organizations: Equitable Origin and MiQ. That 4 Bcf/d of certified gas represents 4.5% of all natural gas produced in the U.S.
S&P Global Platts Analytics is reporting natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica (which they call Appalachia) has “tumbled.” After reaching a record-high 34.8 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) in late December, Appalachia gas production fell to an estimated 33.3 Bcf/d on Jan. 14 (down 4%). The drop in production has caused the price of gas at regional trading hubs like Eastern Gas South (formerly Dominion South) to jump. Eastern Gas South is up 34 cents from the beginning of January.
NextLVL Energy, a Pittsburgh-based well plugging company, was founded by several former EQT Corporation executives following the change in power when the Rice boys took over at EQT. The company was formed to tackle the thorny issue of plugging old and abandoned oil and gas wells (mostly conventional wells). Pennsylvania alone has over 200,000 abandoned and orphaned O&G wells according to some estimates. NextLVL was a prescient move by the former EQT execs. Nearly $400 million from Biden’s infrastructure bill is heading to PA alone over the next 10 years for the specific purpose of plugging old wells.
Two days ago New England generated 24% (a quarter) of the electricity it needs by burning…fuel oil. Why? Low supplies of natural gas. How much electricity was generated by so-called renewables on the same day? According to ISO New England, only 8% of electricity on Jan. 16 was generated by renewables. However, if you take out burning garbage, burning wood, and burning natural gas from landfills (all included in the “renewables” number), just 2.5% of New England’s electricity came from solar and wind, what most people think of as renewable energy. Do you see the folly of dumping fossil energy anytime in the next 50-100 years?
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: MidCentral Energy expands northeast presence; NATIONAL: Trust is gone, institutions are corrupt, it’s now up to us; Democrats defeat GOP sanctions on Russian gas pipeline; For many carbon-capture projects, 45Q tax credit just isn’t enough; Arctic cold snap could push U.S. natural gas prices higher; Energy sector predictions for 2022; INTERNATIONAL: Global gas and LNG – 6 trends to watch in 2022; Russia’s Gazprom has no Europe gas exports planned in February via Yamal pipeline.
Dear MDN Reader:
As Yogi Berra once quipped, this feels like déjà vu all over again. In 2019 New York City and Long Island experienced an epic showdown with National Grid, which supplies natural gas to all of Long Island including Brooklyn and Queens. National Grid slapped a moratorium on new gas hookups due to short supplies and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s blocking of a pipeline to bring more supplies to the region. After extreme blowback from customers, Cuomo threatened to rip National Grid’s franchise away and give it to someone else unless they paid $30 million in bribes and started hooking up new customers again. National Grid caved and the bad guy, Cuomo, won (see 
In early November MDN told you about a massive new power grab being attempted by the Biden Dept. of Transportation’s PHMSA, implementing new regulations to take control of local gathering pipelines, in contravention to the U.S. Constitution (see 
Back in December, MDN editor Jim Willis had the delight and pleasure of attending an open house at the new location of the 
Everyone loves a “top x” list, right? We sure do. Hart Energy, publisher of must-have industry magazines including E&P (Exploration & Production), and Oil and Gas Investor, recently published a special publication called