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Hart Energy Names America’s Top 40 Shale Drillers
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 Shale 2022 which includes profiles on the “top 40 U.S. shale players,” a production forecast, a review of the latest carbon management and completions technologies, midstream trends and natural gas updates. It’s a great publication. In particular, we were interested in the top 40 shale players list. Guess how many in the top 40 focus on or have major operations in the Marcellus/Utica?
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Columbiana County seeks to strengthen ties between shale business, education; NATIONAL: US weekly LNG exports go up by one vessel; API pins high energy costs on Biden policies; Why Democrats make energy expensive (and dirty); INTERNATIONAL: Commodity trader King eyes $200 oil; U.S. voices misgivings on EastMed gas pipeline – Greek officials; Oil producers aren’t keeping up with demand, causing prices to stay high.
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.
Rystad Energy, based in Norway, is an independent energy research and business intelligence company providing data, analytics, and consultancy services to clients exposed to the energy industry across the globe. Rystad is pretty tuned-in when it comes to what’s happening in the oil and gas industry. Earlier this week the company released an analysis that shows global oil and gas investments will expand by $26 billion this year as the industry continues its recovery from the worst of the pandemic. Rystad Energy projects overall oil and gas investments will rise 4% to $628 billion this year from $602 billion in 2021. The main factor behind the increase is a 14% increase in upstream gas (gas drilling) and LNG investments. That’s good news for the M-U.
Yesterday the American Petroleum Institute (API) issued its annual “State of American Energy” report (full copy below). We will say right up front we’ve had our differences of opinion with the API and its direction, particularly over the past year, but there is no disputing the API remains the premier organization representing the oil and gas industry in the U.S. (and beyond). The API is at the top of the O&G food chain. So it’s a big deal that during the annual virtual event to unveil the latest API report the organization featured a young completions engineer who works for Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) in Susquehanna County, PA.
In late 2020, ExxonMobil released the outlines of its development plan for the next five years (see 
Seneca Resources, the drilling subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company, announced yesterday it has achieved certification for 100% of its Marcellus/Utica natural gas production–over 1 billion cubic feet of gross production per day (Bcf/d)–under Equitable Origin’s EO100™ Standard for Responsible Energy Development. Getting gas certified as “responsible” gives drillers another marketing tool in their arsenal.
West Virginia House of Delegates member Lisa Zukoff (Democrat from Marshall County) is making a bold claim: Some out-of-state property owners aren’t paying taxes on oil and gas royalties, and it is costing the state millions of dollars in lost revenue. Zukoff is (once again) introducing a bill in the annual two-month session of the state legislature that requires gas and oil companies to subtract any taxes from the royalty check before it is sent to the property owner.