Spire Exercises Free Speech by Sending Warning Email re Pipe Closure
Has it really come to this? If a utility company that’s being attacked by anti-drilling zealots (Environmental Defense Fund) with help from a colluding federal court (U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) dares to warn its customers they may experience an outage this winter because of the government closing down a critical natural gas pipeline, the utility company is put on the hot seat and made out to be the villain! Blame the victim!! Free speech is now under attack everywhere.
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We are happy to blow the trumpet and support a brand new organization called the 
Last week the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched what we consider a full-on attack against the oil and gas industry when it unveiled new methane regulations (see 
For years Canadian company Questerre Energy patiently waited to begin drilling on their extensive Utica Shale acreage in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, Canada. Quebec has been like New York–completely closed to the oil and gas industry, particularly shale and fracking (see 
If you have even the most basic education in economics (Econ 101) you will have come across the concept of commodities–things like gold, silver, corn, soybeans, oil, and (yes) natural gas. A commodity is something that no matter who produces it, the product itself is the same. A molecule of methane (CH4) is a molecule of methane, no matter who or how it gets produced. Consequently, the only factors that drive price for a commodity are availability and whoever has the lowest cost. Efforts to pretty up a commodity like natgas by claiming it is “responsibly sourced gas” (RSG), or it comes from the butt holes of cows and pigs and chickens (RNG), or is carbon-neutral LNG, are efforts to (in our opinion) snooker people into paying more for what is a garden-variety commodity. Are there people/companies willing to pay more if natgas is produced in a certain way or from a certain source?
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Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its third quarter 2021 update yesterday. The company produced 1.98 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) during 3Q–nearly all of it, 1.83 MMcf/d–was natural gas, the rest was oil and NGLs. Ascent generated $28 million of free cash flow, but like other M-U drillers, hedging bets on derivatives resulted in a huge loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter.
In April of this year, Northeast Natural Energy (NNE), a West Virginia driller, announced it had enrolled itself in both the Equitable Origin and MiQ certification programs to prove the natural gas it produces is “responsibly sourced gas” (see 
The current futures contract for NYMEX natural gas priced at the Henry Hub trading location, called the “front month” (of December), was down for the third trading day in a row yesterday. The December contract fell 45 cents (8.26%) to $4.98 per MMBtu–the first time it has slipped under $5 since October 21. Where might the price be heading next?
In August 2020 when Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, issued its annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR), the company laid out a goal of achieving so-called net-zero carbon emissions by 2025 (see 
Piedmont Natural Gas, which is owned by Duke Energy, plans to build a small, 12-mile natural gas pipeline in northern Greenville County, SC. The company has about 90,000 customers in Greenville County right now and expects to add about 44,000 more over the next 20 years. Piedmont tends to run short on natural gas supplies now on the coldest days during winter. The pipeline will help meet demand now and in the future. Piedmont has just announced the route the pipeline will take, which is parallel to State Route 290, minimizing disturbance to the environment. Yet environmentalist wackos are opposed due to an irrational hatred of fossil fuels.
Three weeks ago the total number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica was 22. Two weeks ago it fell to 9. Last week the numbers picked up somewhat, with 16 new permits issued, breaking down as: 12 permits issued in Pennsylvania, 2 permits issued in Ohio, and 2 permits issued in West Virginia.
We’ve seen the name a few times over the years, but Abarta Energy (aka Abarta Oil & Gas Co.) has not appeared on our radar often. The privately-owned company is based in Pittsburgh and owns (did own) assets, including wells and pipeline systems, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. On Sunday Abarta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting liabilities of $25.4 million and assets of $4.2 million. Abarta says it wants to liquidate/sell all of its remaining oil and gas assets.
What do you think of this one? The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is launching a “favorites” list for Marcellus drilling and pipeline companies. You can earn yourself onto the list to get special treatment if you go to the extraordinary (and very expensive) lengths to do things the DEP wants you to do–things *not* required under current law, like “plugging abandoned oil wells, powering equipment with renewable energy, improving water quality in historically polluted streams and planting trees to offset greenhouse gas emissions.” Your reward for landing on the attaboy list? Your application for building a well pad or pipeline corridor will move to the top of the stack for review, leapfrogging those in line for a standard review. In other words, you’ll get the treatment the law guarantees (14 days for an erosion permit review) instead of the months and months of delays (in violation of the law) you get now. What a deal.