Deloitte: Should O&G Cos. Stay in O&G or Invest in Green Energy?
Powerhouse consulting firm Deloitte has just published a series of studies addressing the question of whether oil and gas (and chemicals) companies should optimize and capture the remaining value from hydrocarbons (keep drilling for oil and gas), or should they “embrace the broader energy scope” and begin investing in so-called green energy? Deloitte says, “There is no easy answer to this conundrum.”
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: UAlbany faculty wants pension fund to divest from fossil fuels; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: ‘You’re fracking welcome’ billboard points to strain between oil and gas, Santa Fe; NATIONAL: Despite more people staying at home, U.S. residential energy use fell 4% in 2020; The impact of decarbonization efforts on the LNG industry; John Kerry’s 45-person climate staff is stifling; Biden’s energy policy descends into chaos; INTERNATIONAL: Optimizing gas mixtures for hydrogen storage in clathrate hydrates.
Diversified Gas & Oil Company, which owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells (with over 400 Marcellus/Utica shale wells) in the Appalachian Basin, is no longer calling itself Diversified Gas & Oil Company. Instead, the company has changed its name to Diversified Energy Company. The company also changed its website URL from the old dgoc.com to 
Two weeks ago we brought you the sad news that completion and startup for Equitrans’ 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and the company’s 75-mile extension to it called MVP Southgate will now be delayed until 2022 and 2023 respectively (see 
This Wednesday the radicals of “Protect PT” (Penn Township)–a group funded with shadowy Big Green money–will try to convince the Democrats sitting on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court to overturn legal and safe shale drilling at well pads in Penn Township (Westmoreland County, PA). Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) previously submitted plans to drill multiple wells on two new well pads in the township. The Zoning Hearing Board approved the plans.
Did you know that Mom Earth is polluting…herself? Did you know that Mom Earth is responsible for her own global warming? Yeah. You see, a full 25% of all so-called fugitive methane emissions (methane that goes unfiltered up into the atmosphere) come from swamps. Or what you may call “wetlands.” And there isn’t a darned thing we mankind can do about it because, well, they’re wetlands and pristine and if you drain them, that’s an environmental crime against Mom Earth. Yet swamps are causing a big, fat global warming issue. What’s an environmentalist wacko to do?
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 first-quarter 2021 update earlier this week. The big announcement coming from CEO Jeff Fisher is that Ascent is pursuing (like three other M-U drillers) “certification” of its shale gas.
Pieridae Energy’s Goldboro LNG project, located in Nova Scotia (with the potential to export Marcellus/Utica molecules) has been on our radar for years. Nine years to be exact. In August 2020 Pieridae hired a senior VP to run the project, an indicator the company is serious about building it (see 
MiQ is an independent, not-for-profit partnership between RMI and SYSTEMIQ aimed at reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The way they do it is with a certification. The MiQ Standard evaluates factors in methane intensity, company practices, and methane detection, giving the methane produced an A-F grade. Several M-U drillers, including EQT and Northeast Natural Energy, are adopting MiQ as part of their effort to prove they aren’t scumbags polluting Mom Earth. Now MiQ is expanding to certify entire cargoes of LNG that get exported.
The Jones Act prevents LNG from being transported from one U.S. port (like Cove Point, Maryland and Elba Island, Georgia) to other U.S. ports (like Boston and New York) because there are no built-in-the-USA LNG carriers, a requirement under the 1920 Jones Act. When New England runs low on natural gas, they must import the gas from Russia (see 
The Enverus rig count added another 10 rigs for the week ending May 13 to hit a new post-pandemic high of 555 active rigs. Both the Marcellus and the Utica lost one rig each, ending the week at 35 for the Marcellus and 12 for the Utica. Cumulatively the M-U has 47 active rigs. The main competitor to the M-U, the Haynesville in Louisiana and Texas, lost 2 rigs and now has 51 active rigs.