Enverus Rig Count @ 547 (+4); Marcellus @ 34 (+1), Utica @ 11 (+0)
After record gains since the beginning of the year, two weeks ago the Enverus U.S. rig count slid backward for the week, with the week ending May 19 losing 12 rigs (see Enverus Rig Count @ 543 (-12); Marcellus @ 33 (-2), Utica @ 11 (-1)). We began to claw back some of the losses last week. For the week ending May 26, the national rig count regained four rigs. The Utica stayed even but the Marcellus regained one of the rigs it lost the week before. Collectively the M-U now operates 45 rigs.
Read More “Enverus Rig Count @ 547 (+4); Marcellus @ 34 (+1), Utica @ 11 (+0)”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Tellurian secures LNG SPA with Gunvor; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas, oil pipelines directed to enhance cybersecurity following Colonial hack; Toomey, GOP senators offer White House nearly $1 trillion deal on infrastructure; How COVID-19 reshaped the future of North American LNG projects; May 26, 2021: A day that may live in infamy for Big Oil.
Diversified Gas & Oil recently changed its name to Diversified Energy. Along with the name change came a strategy change. Until last month Diversified had concentrated on building the company by buying older (mature) oil and gas wells in the Appalachian Basin. In April the company announced it is branching out beyond Appalachia for the first time with a purchase of ~780 net operated wells and leases in the Cotton Valley/Haynesville region of Lousiana for $135 million (see 
The state treasurers from all three actively producing Marcellus/Utica states, including Stacy Garrity (PA), Robert Sprague (OH), and Riley Moore (WV), along with the state treasurers from 11 other oil and gas producing states, sent a letter to John Kerry, Biden’s so-called Climate Envoy, telling Kerry and other Biden officials to stop pressuring banks and other financial institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies. The treasurers also issued a warning to those banks and financial institutions letting them know their states (all 14 of them) will collectively pull their money out of those banks and financial institutions–BILLIONS of dollars–if the banks and financial institutions persist in divesting from fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel haters: BACK OFF!
In an effort to flow more Marcellus natural gas to a starving New York City, Kinder Morgan cut a deal with utility company Consolidated Edison in 2019 to provide more gas by beefing up capacity along its Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) that feeds NYC, allowing Con Ed to avoid cutting customers off from natgas hookups (see 
LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports are an important and growing market for Marcellus/Utica natural gas. Two LNG export facilities currently export 100% M-U molecules: Cove Point, Maryland, and Elba Island, Georgia. However, our molecules make their way via a network of pipelines to several Gulf Coast LNG export facilities too, including the largest LNG export facility in the U.S., Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass. But is there a cloud on the horizon that threatens even more M-U gas from being liquefied and exported? Perhaps, and it comes from Alaska.
Gordon Tomb, a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation (Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank) has some strong words for those want to put all of PA’s energy eggs into the so-called renewables basket: “‘Green’ energy proposals are no economic therapeutic for Pennsylvania. They’re snake oil miracle cures that ignore the realities of physics–and people’s needs.” So begins a column by Tomb. It’s a verbal slap across the face to get the attention of people who either won’t, or can’t, think for themselves about the glaring failures of a policy to convert to all-renewable energy, and what a total conversion would mean for the state (a complete disaster).
Back in March MDN was one of the first to warn you about a major policy change at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) when three of five FERC commissioners approved an obscure, smallish pipeline project in the Midwest factoring in the pipeline’s contribution to so-called greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (see 
Gateway Royalty is sounding the alarm over a new bill that’s quickly advancing in the Ohio legislature. Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 152 allows drillers to force-pool landowners if 65% of a drilling unit is signed to a lease–a pretty low bar if you ask us. But that’s not even the worst part. The reluctant landowner would receive a standard 12.5% royalty, no matter what the royalty is for the rest of the leases in the unit, AND post-production deductions would be taken out. Landowners could realistically see a 6.25% royalty…or less! It’s time to burn up the phone lines to either get this bill changed, or defeated.
In theater of the absurd, yesterday a bunch of sleazy politicians, headed by the grandmaster sleazoloa himself, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, unveiled proposed new anti-Marcellus legislation based on a ginned-up, fake anti-shale grand jury report that Shapiro manipulated and orchestrated last year (see 
You have two days left to make your voice heard with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concerning whether or not the Corps should issue a new permit to the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project as it crosses rivers and streams in both West Virginia and Virginia. Back in April we told you the Corps had given antis an extra 30 days to comment on (complain, manipulate, lie about) issuing MVP a new permit (see 
Radical environmentalists continue to use the City of Oberlin, Ohio to try and advance their agenda of ending the use of natural gas pipelines. And Oberlin willingly lets them do it. We’re referring to the latest court filing by Oberlin (actually by Big Green lobbyists using Oberlin) contesting the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the NEXUS pipeline, a pipeline from the Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada. Oberlin says FERC’s approval of NEXUS is faulty because some gas gets exported and is not “in the public interest.”
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week, but the numbers were all down. Pennsylvania issued just 8 permits with 6 in the northeastern part of the state and 2 in the southwestern region. Ohio issued four permits, all for the same driller on the same well pad in the same county. And West Virginia issued just one new permit for last week.