EIA Chief Says NatGas Grows 4% in 2022 – In Other Plays, Not in M-U

U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) acting administrator, Stephen Nally, told the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday that his agency predicts natural gas production in the United States will grow another 4% next year. However, that growth will NOT come from the biggest gas-producing basin in the country (ours, the Marcellus/Utica). Instead, Nally says next year’s growth in gas production will come from the M-U’s chief competitors–in the Haynesville and in the Permian.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: EQT announces public offering of common stock by selling shareholders; NATIONAL: USA OPEC backlash brews; EIA forecasts crude oil prices will decline during 2022; US weekly LNG exports and Henry Hub go up; If you read it in the mainstream media, it’s wrong — plastics edition.
Over the years we’ve covered a number of stories about companies buying future royalty payments from landowners (and rights owners) for an upfront, one lump sum payment now. Back in May, we told you about a relative newcomer to our region doing this, Verde Bio Holdings (see
Yesterday MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a division of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has accepted the petitions of rabid anti-drilling zealots aimed at boosting bonds to drill new conventional and unconventional (shale) wells (see
We told you in October 2020 that a pair of natural gas-fired power plants in and near New York City were fighting for their lives (see 
Although the left so often preaches we should all be colorblind, they are the ones who are obsessed with a person’s, or in this case, a hydrogen molecule’s, color. So-called environmentalists are pushing hydrogen as the nirvana alternative to natural gas. Just one teeny-tiny problem: Some 95% of all hydrogen is produced by and comes from natural gas! Which has given rise to a rainbow of colors when talking about hydrogen. If the hydrogen (H2) is produced by cracking natural gas and capturing/storing the carbon dioxide that’s left over, it’s called “blue” hydrogen. Don’t store the CO2 when producing the H2? That’s called “gray” hydrogen. And there are other colors depending on the process to produce the H2, including “green” (made from so-called renewable energy sources), “brown” or “black” (H2 made from coal), “turquoise” (stores the CO2 in solid form), and now (yes), even “pink” hydrogen, made using nuclear energy. These dipwads with their color designations are too funny…
WT Data Mining and Science Corp. wants to set up a bitcoin mining operation at a compressed natural gas (CNG) facility owned by Geopetro in Darlington Township (Beaver County), PA. WT Data Mining proposes to build an electric generator at the CNG site and use natural gas to generate massive amounts of electricity required to power the company’s computers that mine bitcoin. Some of the neighbors are concerned about noise.
The Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) is a division of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The EQB is one of the most powerful governmental agencies in the state, consisting of 20 members with the power to create new regulations. Some 11 of the EQB members are appointed by the governor, Tom Wolf in this case. The EQB yesterday voted 16-3 in favor of considering a petition to boost required bonds to drill new conventional wells by 1,500%, and bonds to drill new shale wells by 830%. The new bonds were proposed by virulent anti-fossil fuel groups with the aim to make it too costly to drill new wells. Wolf’s EQB-stacked board is cooperating with the antis.
The so-called International Group of LNG Importers (GIIGNL) yesterday released a framework for transparent emissions reporting and neutrality declarations. The GIIGNL, whose members handle more than 90% of LNG imports worldwide, doesn’t like the patchwork system in place now where companies can on their own claim net-zero carbon emissions for their LNG. So GIIGNL is horning in and claiming *theirs* is the best way to measure low or no “greenhouse gas” emissions. GIIGNL demands Scope 3 emissions be included in the definition of net-zero carbon LNG, something that isn’t a part of most net-zero claims today.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his successor Kathy Hochul have blocked new natural gas pipelines from the “fracked gas” fields of neighboring Pennsylvania. They seem to be congenitally allergic to fossil fuels. Haters of natural gas. Cuomo also hates nuclear energy. He insisted on shutting down the Indian Point nuclear power plant that once provided 25% of New York City’s electricity. All that juice has to come from somewhere. Thus far, one type of energy is standing in the gap to increase electricity production and prevent mass blackouts: natural gas-fired power plants.