Interstate NatGas Pipeline Expansions in 2021 Lowest in 5 Yrs
Interstate pipelines are pipelines that cross state boundaries. They are regulated (approved by) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Each year new pipelines are added, or existing pipelines expanded, to flow ever-more natural gas across our great country. Some years those additions of new capacity are higher, and some years lower. We think it’s no coincidence that in 2021, the first full year of Joe Biden’s assault on the oil and gas industry, new pipeline capacity to flow natural gas grew at its lowest rate since the bad Obama years.
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OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere and EOG extend long-term LNG supply deal; Chevron targets 5 U.S. well sites in project to curb emissions; NATIONAL: Standing up to putin means ditching net-zero; N. America’s old pipelines seek new life moving carbon in climate push; US LNG exports down by five from last week; INTERNATIONAL: Well-known former Marcellus exec now working in war zone in Ukraine.
Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. The update includes a preview of what’s ahead for 2022. Among the blockbuster news is that after five years, Range, which has long specialized in drilling “wet gas” wells in southeastern Pennsylvania, is returning to northeastern PA this year to drill some dry gas wells. Why? The economics are there, says Dennis Degner, Range’s COO and top driller.
Pipeline and midstream giant Williams issued its quarterly and full-year update earlier this week. The company, which owns and operates the massive Transco pipeline system, reported new all-time highs for both gathering volumes (13.9 Bcf/d), and transmission volumes (23.8 Bcf/d). CEO Alan Armstrong said on a call with analysts, “We really continue to fire on all cylinders.” Indeed they do.
The West Virginia Public Energy Authority is a seven-member board that aims to make the best use of WV’s abundant natural energy resources. State code gives the board power to buy, lease, and issue bonds to build electric power plants and natural gas transmission projects. Gov. Jim Justice reactivated the board last summer after it had been dormant for upwards of a decade. The first meeting of the new board was held yesterday. Our sense is that the board is still trying to figure out what the heck it’s supposed to do.
Penn State has launched a new research project to see if it can prove there is a link between water contamination in southwestern Pennsylvania and fracking. We’ve seen this movie before…or have we? In 2018 PA Gov. Tom Wolf, a liberal Democrat who sometimes supports the shale gas industry (as long as he can tax it) caved to demands from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to launch a “study” in a bid to “prove” cases of rare childhood cancer in southwestern PA can be tied to shale drilling in the region (see 
A Forbes article caught our eye and we had to do a double-take. Two liberals from the Left Coast, professors at the University of Washington, Seattle, wrote an honest and transparent article about how the crisis in Ukraine is making their fellow liberals take an honest, probing look at the policies they advocate for. Renewables, which the two profs support, are not enough to power the world today. Not in the real world of 2022 with Vlad Putin threatening to overrun half of Europe.
All eyes were on Equitrans Midstream as the company released its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. The reason all eyes were on Equitrans is MVP–the Mountain Valley Pipeline project. MVP simply can’t move beyond the leftist Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Every time Big Green groups, including the Sierra Club (funded in part with foreign money) challenges permits for MVP, the Democrat judges of the 4th Circuit go along and overturn the permits (see 
Despite all of Europe’s arrogant talk about rejecting America’s “fracked gas” as too dirty, the Old World imported more gas from the U.S. than from any other country on planet earth in 2021, thanks to Donald Trump’s efforts to export “molecules of freedom” to other countries around the planet. Hey Democrat media, who’s laughing now about those “molecules of freedom” with Vladimir Putin breathing down Europe’s neck?
Shell, which recently dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name after leaving The Netherlands due to high taxes and overregulation, is one of the world’s supermajors (oil and gas driller). Shell is also one of (perhaps THE) largest producers of LNG, or liquefied natural gas, in the world. The company has just released its sixth annual LNG Outlook 2022 (full copy below) which highlights key trends in 2021 and hauls out the crystal ball to predict where things are heading over the next 20 years. Shell says global demand for LNG is expected to nearly double (up 90%) to 700 million tonnes by 2040. Why? Because natgas emits less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than other alternatives.
Here’s an interesting twist. Baker Hughes (BH), one of the biggest oilfield services companies on the planet, is investing in a company that designs and builds natural gas-fired electric power plants. But not just any gas-fired power plants. These plants use new technology so that when the natural gas is burned (to produce heat to spin a turbine), there is no, as in zero, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Technology to lower or eliminate CO2 emissions has been available for sometime, but typically has been too expensive. This new tech BH is backing promises to be much lower cost.
The wild roller coaster continues of up, down, up, down, up, down. Last week the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells is down again–to 18 total. Pennsylvania had 16 new permits last week, nine for Repsol and three for Coterra Energy. All of Repsol and Coterra’s permits issued for Susquehanna County. West Virginia had two new permits, one each for Southwestern Energy and Antero Resources, in Marshall and Doddridge counties. Ohio? A big, fat, goose egg. No new shale permits issued last week in the Buckeye State.