NextLVL Energy Looks for, Fixes Methane Leaks in Old O&G Wells
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.
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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 
Just coming to light for us now is an application to build a “data center” in Morgantown, WV. The application was filed last August, but the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality held a hearing yesterday to accept public input on the facility. Marion Energy Partners wants to build the facility, yet its purpose is shrouded in mystery. The best guess is that this is another new cryptocurrency (bitcoin) mining operation. Our interest is that it will use four natural gas-fired turbines to generate the huge amounts of electricity needed to operate it–natural gas that will come from the Marcellus/Utica.
A Shell spokesman last week said that the mighty ethane cracker plant the company is building in Monaca (Beaver County), PA is now 80% complete and projected to be operational “sometime this year,” although a more specific date can’t be nailed down. Currently, there are some 8,000 workers who report to the construction site each day. Simply astounding! When the plant is done and operational, it will employ about 600 permanent on-site workers. Shell is now in recruiting mode to find those 600 permanent workers.
Earlier this week MDN told you that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf swiftly vetoed a Senate resolution sent to him that would block PA from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), nothing more than a carbon tax that won’t actually reduce carbon emissions (see 
Did you catch the huge spike in the NYMEX Henry Hub futures price yesterday? Day over day, the February NYMEX contract price increased by $0.61 to close at $4.86/MMBtu–up 12.52% in a single day. Similarly, the March NYMEX futures contract jumped by $0.36 cents to close at $4.33. Why the big gains? In a single word: weather.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas spot prices at Henry Hub averaged $3.91/MMBtu for 2021. Each month the EIA issues a Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). In the latest STEO update for January, EIA predicts that the annual average HH price will average $3.79/MMBtu in 2022, down $0.12 from 2021. EIA further predicts the HH price in 2023 will go down yet more, to an average of $3.63.