MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Chesapeake-Chief deal one of Q1’s biggest shale deals; Ohio agrees – make more clean, affordable energy here at home; NATIONAL: Oil falls with concerns of economic slowdown; Joe Biden’s energy policies will prolong the current crisis, oil and gas executive says; INTERNATIONAL: JPMorgan sees risk of $185 oil.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Wed, Apr 20, 2022”
New modern era records continue to be broken. The Henry Hub “front month” NYMEX futures price for natural gas briefly traded over $8/MMBtu yesterday before closing at $7.82/MMBtu (up $0.52 for the day). It certainly looks as if soon, possibly today, the NYMEX price will fly by and close at a price higher than $8/MMBtu. The rapid rise in price, now closing in on the highest in 14 years, is really quite breathtaking. However, some analysts are warning of a correction.
Read More “NYMEX HH Natural Gas Price Flies by $8/MMBtu, Closes @ $7.82”
In a court case that stretches back to 2019, Antero Resources, the biggest driller in West Virginia, challenged how its wells had been valued for tax purposes in Doddridge and Richie counties for 2016 and 2017. Antero said the combined value of its wells for those years should have been $1.488 billion. The state tax commissioner reckoned the value to be $1.513 billion. The controversy of well valuations not only for Antero but other drillers led to a reworking of how the state law values shale wells (see WV Supreme Court Tweaks Shale Well Property Tax Calculation). That whole process is still playing out with a newly passed bill (see Bill to Fix WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Close – Will Gov Sign?). However, there’s still the outstanding issue of valuations back in 2016/2017 to resolve. Last week the WV Supreme Court resolved it…
Read More “WV Supreme Court Rules Against Antero in Well Tax Valuation Case”
Ridgecrest Road in the village of Bethlehem (Ohio County), WV is a suburb of Wheeling. Ridgecrest Road doubles as State Route 88, carrying traffic into Marshall County. Over the past decade or so truck traffic along Ridgecrest has increased as drilling in the Marcellus in Marshall County has increased. The problem is the trucks going to/from well sites operate 24/7. The trucks are loud and wake up the people who live along that road. They’re also driving too fast.
Read More “24/7 Marcellus Shale Truck Traffic in Bethlehem, WV a Problem”
Spire STL is a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. The pipeline began flowing gas in late 2019 (see Spire Pipeline Ready to Flow Marcellus/Utica Gas to St. Louis). In June 2021 three Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the certificate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued for building Spire STL, threatening the pipeline with shutting down (see Fed Court Overturns Marcellus to St. Louis Pipe – Shutdown Coming?). In October Spire asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the order that shuts down the pipeline. The Supremes just declined to hear the case.
Read More “U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Spire Pipeline Appeal – What Next?”
It appears the venerable number crunchers at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) bungled the monthly estimates they forecast quite badly in March, making a revision to the numbers for both the Marcellus/Utica and all seven tracked shale plays in yesterday’s April monthly Drilling Productivity Report. Last month EIA forecasted the M-U would produce 36.848 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of natural gas in April (see EIA DPR: M-U Hit New All-Time High Production Record in March). Yesterday EIA revised April’s production number down to 35.443 Bcf/d, some 1.405 Bcf/d less than originally forecasted. For all seven shale plays EIA tracks, the agency said last month that April would see 92.326 Bcf/d of gas production. That number is now revised to 90.105 Bcf, a full 2.221 Bcf/d less. Big time blunder on EIA’s part.
Read More “EIA DPR: Big Revision DOWN for April Natural Gas Production”
In the end, we didn’t think they would actually do it–but they did. The province of Quebec, Canada, with a huge supply of Utica Shale gas sitting beneath it, has just passed a new law outlawing all oil and natural gas production throughout the province. It is a breathtaking grab of totalitarian power. It’s also energy suicide. Quebec says it will pay a piddly $79.5 million (US) to expropriate the oil and gas drilling rights of companies owning those rights in the province. We’ve seen estimates that those rights are worth more than $5 billion. Questerre Energy, which owns more than 1 million acres of leases and an estimated 6 Tcf of Utica Shale reserves in the province, is considering its next legal move.
Read More “Quebec Pulls Trigger & Commits Energy Suicide – Bans All O&G Prod.”
The Enverus rig count, as of last Wednesday, stood at 791, even with the same number from the week before. We are still near the highest number of rigs in operation since March 2020, the dawn of the pandemic. We are only 47 rigs away from the pre-pandemic high of 838 rigs. Last week the Marcellus had 41 rigs operating (same as the prior week), while the Utica operated 11 rigs (dropping two rigs), for a total of 52 active rigs in the M-U. Our chief rival, the Louisiana and Texas Haynesville, operated 69 rigs last week, dropping three rigs from the week before.
Read More “Enverus Rig Count @ 791 (+0); Marcellus @ 41 (+0), Utica @ 11 (-2)”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Permian gas production at risk by late 2023 as midstream capacity dwindles; Dark side of solar sales; NATIONAL: USA energy body lowers 2022 Brent oil price forecast.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Apr 19, 2022”
Some three years ago the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) began the process of formulating new regulations that will apply to intrastate pipelines transporting gasoline, petroleum, crude oil, and natural gas liquids like ethane. In July 2021, the PUC finally published a draft of proposed new regs (see PA PUC Proposes New Regs for Pipelines – Landmen Must be Licensed). After initial feedback, the PUC officially published their draft regs in February 2022, called a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Order (or a NOPR). On April 12, last week, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) along with affected groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) filed comments on the PUC’s new regulations.
Read More “PA PUC Pushes Forward with Onerous New Regs for Liquids Pipelines”
In July 2021, a Pennsylvania Democrat lawmaker from Beaver County (southwestern PA) who professes to support the Marcellus industry, Rep. Rob Matzie, wrote a letter to Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell (a fellow Dem) asking him to deny a request by PennEnergy Resources to withdraw as much as 3 million gallons of water a day from Big Sewickley Creek and one of its tributaries for shale fracking (see Dem PA Lawmaker Wants to Block Use of Creek Water for Fracking). McDonnell honored his fellow Dem’s request and blocked PennEnergy’s request to use creek water in October (see PA DEP Blocks Use of SWPA Creek Water for Fracking). Matzie is back, this time to oppose a second request by PennEnergy to withdraw half the amount of water from Big Sewickley Creek.
Read More “Dem PA Lawmaker Continues to Oppose PennEnergy Creek Water Request”
Last September MDN broke the news that Rockdale Marcellus had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (see NEPA Driller Rockdale Marcellus Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy). In January we told you that Repsol had won an auction to buy the assets for $220 million in cash, plus the assumption of $2 million in debt owed to trade creditors (see Sale of Rockdale PA Assets to Repsol Closes – $220M Cash, $2M Debt). After the sale to Repsol and payments to key creditors, there’s still a small pot of cash ($17.7 million) leftover. Rockdale’s plan to distribute it and other miscellaneous assets to some of the remaining creditors, and close the doors forever, was approved last week by the bankruptcy court.
Read More “Court Approves Rockdale Marcellus Plan to Finish Closing the Doors”
One of the hottest of the hot sectors in which to invest (right now) is shale energy. That’s according to multiple sources, including a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer, and researcher. In an article appearing on the OilPrice.com website, Alex Kimani talks up mid-cap energy stocks as outperforming the supermajors. Among two of Kimani’s top three picks are two Marcellus/Utica drillers, who are having a stellar year in stock performance. We went looking for the stock performance of other M-U drillers too. We have a list to share showing just how much each driller’s share price has increased this year.
Read More “Looking to Invest in O&G Companies? M-U Drillers Offer Big Returns”
GAI Consultants, headquartered in Pittsburgh, is a planning, engineering & environmental consulting firm serving clients in the energy, transportation, development, government, and industrial markets. GAI has been in business since 1958 and has served the oil and gas industry since the early 1980s. The shale industry was a big boom for GAI’s business. Shale is helping GAI to grow again–exponentially. GAI announced last Friday the company has expanded further into the oil and gas industry with the acquisition of PGH Petroleum & Environmental Engineers LLC, headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Read More “GAI Buys Texas Engineering Co. to Expand Services in M-U, Elsewhere”
Last week MDN told you about a small (tiny) LNG export facility in Port St. Joe, Florida (see Small Florida LNG Export Facility NOT Subject to FERC Regulation). Typically when we talk about LNG and exports, we’re talking about huge facilities located along a coastline, with mega tankers pulling up to load liquefied natural gas. Not so with Port St. Joe and with many other small LNG facilities. In fact, not all LNG facilities are aimed at exporting (most small facilities are not). But added together, a large number of small LNG facilities is a great market for Marcellus/Utica natural gas.
Read More “Small-Scale LNG Plants an Important Market for M-U NatGas”
Despots and dictators the world over are the same, whether it’s Vladimir Putin relabeling his naked aggression of outright war against Ukraine a “military operation,” or New York State’s so-called Climate Action Council relabeling natural gas as “fossil gas.” Tyrants seek to relabel those things they can’t control in an attempt to pressure, hoodwink, and manipulate the masses–to force others into doing what they (the tyrants) want done. The Communists who run NY state can’t convince the population to self-immolate by giving up the use of natural gas, so they’re changing the language, hoping to convince more people to go along with their harebrained plan to dump the use of all “fossil fuels.” The left’s plan is energy suicide and a majority of New Yorkers instinctively know it.
Read More “NY’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Wackos Rename Natural Gas to “Fossil Gas””