Brooke County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Southwestern Energy | West Virginia
Weirton, WV Rejects Southwestern’s Plan for Well Pad in City Limits
Southwestern Energy, which is one of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers, previously applied for a conditional use permit from the City of Weirton, WV that would allow them to build a well pad and drill several wells on it all within the city limits of Weirton. The request came before the Weirton Zoning Board of Appeals in August but the board delayed a decision until this month, September. Following almost three hours of comments and testimony yesterday, the Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously voted down Southwestern’s request–a decidedly unfriendly gesture by the normally gas-friendly municipalities in WV.
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Spire STL is a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. The pipeline began flowing gas in late 2019 (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) under current Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick has intentionally slammed the brakes on approving pipeline projects across the country, including those here in the northeast (something we predicted if Biden were to win the White House). Glick’s excuse for delaying new approvals is that FERC is trying to figure out how to account for mythical man-made global warming when evaluating whether or not to approve a new project. It’s pure horse manure, and a prominent Pennsylvania labor union is calling FERC out on its ongoing delay tactic.
MDN first told you about plans to build the Chickahominy Power Station, a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant planned for Charles City County (near Richmond, Va.) in June 2018 (see 
ExxonMobil is the latest big driller to sign on to a certification program called MiQ which aims to prove the natural gas it produces is “responsible.” We guess all the gas it’s produced for decades until now has been irresponsible, right? Anyway, Exxon plans to initially use the MiQ standard to certify some of the gas coming from its Permian Basin facilities at Poker Lake, New Mexico. Depending on how that goes, Exxon plans to expand the MiQ certification to other plays, including the Marcellus/Utica.
Last week only Pennsylvania issued new permits for new shale well drilling–14 of them scattered around the state. Both Ohio (for the seventh week in a row) and West Virginia did not issue new shale permits last week.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Bluefield State trying to make engineers out of the Northern Panhandle; Proposed natural gas and oil industry taxes would hamper economy; Carl Marrara of PMA discusses RGGI and why it is bad in PA; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Enbridge buys N. America’s biggest oil export hub in $3-bln Moda deal; Echols promoting use of CNG across state; NATIONAL: Merger mania is back in North America’s oil patch; Manchin backs as little as $1 trillion of Biden’s $3.5 trillion plan; Give us regulation, not a new tax, gas groups beg Congress; Executive paychecks at U.S. oil-service firms rebound from crash; INTERNATIONAL: High natural gas prices strain Europeans, weighing on recovery.
The price of natural gas futures (the NYMEX) continues to hit new post-pandemic highs. The NYMEX price is high and remains high, as we pointed out on Friday, due to low storage numbers and Hurricane Ida shutting down Gulf of Mexico natgas production (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice in the September 4 Pennsylvania Bulletin for “final technical guidance” on Implementing the Area of Review Regulatory Requirement for Unconventional Well Permitting. This is a document to guide drillers as they evaluate where they will frack, instructing them in how they should evaluate and monitor other nearby wells (other fracked wells or conventional oil and gas wells) to ensure those wells don’t “communicate” oil and gas up to the surface. That is, to ensure oil and gas come out of the right borehole, the well it’s supposed to come out of.
Early last week MDN told you about a new/third well pad planned by Olympus Energy in Upper Burrell Township in Westmoreland County, PA (see 
Antis love to work in anonymity. Some of them anyway. They love to anonymously lob lies and smears on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms about projects like the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Just who is behind those social media accounts? MVP wants to know and has filed a subpoena in federal court asking Facebook to disclose who is behind the Facebook group Appalachians Against Pipelines. Facebook is only too happy to block conservative groups, but for some strange reason, Facebook likes to protect leftists. It’s called censorship and under our Constitution should be illegal. We’ll see if Facebook complies with the court order to disclose the identities of those behind the anti-MVP group.
Not only is the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill bad for the country (see 
A group of some 200 oil and gas executives and “bitcoin miners” mixed, mingled, drank beer, and talked shop on a recent Wednesday night in August in Houston, Texas. The main topic of discussion: Using “stranded” natural gas to power bitcoin mining rigs, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and makes money for the gas providers, as well as the miners. Bitcoin mining is becoming a big thing in the oil and gas patch. What is it?
The price of natural gas has almost doubled over the past year. In September 2020 the NYMEX Henry Hub price stood at $2.41/MMBtu. Yesterday the price closed at $4.64/MMBtu. Astonishing! The question keeps coming: Why is the price of natgas high and staying high, even though production in the country’s largest shale gas basin–the Marcellus/Utica–is on the rise? It’s a paradox. The short answer is that (1) production in other basins has not bounced back like the M-U following the pandemic, and (2) there is more demand, in the form of exports, for American natgas (via pipeline and LNG). Increasing demand with the same or less supply equals higher prices.
In January MDN told you that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, wants to buy Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million (see