M-U State Treasurers Threaten Banks that Won’t Lend to Fossil Fuels
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!
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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 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Muth and mouth disease spreading through Pennsylvania capitol; NATIONAL: Exxon Mobil loses board seats to tiny hedge fund; Liberal media ignore ethics and electric concerns at Biden Energy Department; Biden looks abroad for electric vehicle metals, in blow to U.S. miners; INTERNATIONAL: Air France-KLM completes eight-hour flight powered by used cooking oil; WoodMac: Europe as global LNG price-setter; Court orders Royal Dutch Shell to cut net emissions by 45%; The IEA’s ‘roadmap’ for net-zero is full of dead ends.
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.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released their latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2021 (full copy below). The main indicators are moving in the right direction. In 1Q21 the number of new wells spud (begun to be drilled) was 133 new shale wells. That’s less than the 153 spud wells in 1Q20, which happened prior to the pandemic, but more than the spud numbers for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2020. Even with less new drilling over the past few years, production numbers continued to soar, hitting a brand new, all-time high of 1.863 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) during 1Q21.
Yesterday we shared the devastating (for us) news that Cabot Oil & Gas, one of the premier drillers in the Marcellus, is merging with (being acquired by) Permian driller Cimarex (see 
The judge in a lawsuit initiated by Cabot Oil & Gas against a Susquehanna County, PA landowner and his lawyers has had it up to here with the ongoing stonewalling and delay tactics by the landowner’s lawyers. “Four years we’ve been spinning our wheels on this nonsense,” the judge said. “The court is extremely frustrated, to put it politely.” The judge bordered on being impolite at a hearing last Thursday…