NETL Says Hydrogen from NatGas is Destination, Not a Bridge
Global warming nutters have convinced themselves that in order to prevent a global catastrophe, all fossil fuels (including natural gas) must be abandoned and never used again. It’s a lunatic notion, demonstrably so. The thinking is that hydrogen will replace natural gas and be burned in its place. The nutters further demand hydrogen be produced by “green” methods, namely using electricity from solar and wind to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The problem is, it’s EXPENSIVE. Prohibitively so. There’s a better solution: Split the hydrogen out of methane (natural gas).
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: A project to plug 1,600 wells is almost ready to launch, and has been for six years; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas upstream oil and natural gas sector continues to add jobs; NATIONAL: Federal bullying threatens small oil and gas producers; Let’s work for science with integrity: Steve Koonin’s new book “Unsettled”; INTERNATIONAL: China’s debt-trap diplomacy.
MDN was the only news source to openly criticize Chesapeake Energy CEO Doug Lawler’s purchase of Eagle Ford oil assets in 2018 for $4 billion (see 
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) 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)–all of it in the Appalachian Basin. DGO is expanding. Earlier today the company announced it has cut a deal to buy ~780 net operated wells and leases in the Cotton Valley/Haynesville region of Lousiana for $135 million.
Antero Resources, which drills almost exclusively in the West Virginia Marcellus/Utica, issued its first-quarter 2021 update yesterday. Antero is the third-largest natural gas producer in the U.S. and the second-largest NGL producer. Big company. Important company. Antero is also one of the best hedgers (preselling production at a set price) in the business. During 1Q21 Antero averaged $4.03 per Mcfe (thousand cubic feet equivalent)–which was $1.34/Mcfe *above* the average NYMEX futures price in 1Q21.
As they have done in the past few quarters, CNX Resources once again issued a quarterly update without an accompanying summary/overview. We have the raw numbers (below), and we have excerpts from the conference call with analysts. It was comments made during the conference call that seems to have irked the liberals who operate mainstream media. Bloomberg wrote an entire article about CNX’s quarterly update that didn’t contain any information about the company’s financial and operational performance. Instead, Bloomberg focused on truth-to-power comments by a CNX top manager who said most ESG goals are “the epitome of flawed corporate governance.” We couldn’t agree more!
Radicalized groups including the New Jersey Sierra Club and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance tried their best to abuse the court system to overturn permits to build a 28-mile natural gas pipeline project called the Southern Reliability Link (SRL) pipeline project. They have (we’re happy to report) failed. SRL will connect to New Jersey Natural Gas’ (NJNG) distribution system serving customers in Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth counties (in NJ) to provide backup for hundreds of thousands of NJ residents who lost access to natural gas following Super Storm Sandy. The NJ Superior Court’s Appellate Division dismissed appeals by the radicals to overturn state-issued permits for the project.
As we reported last week, after four months of steady increases in the U.S. rig count, the Enverus rig count “took a step back” with a decrease (see 
Last November Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), filed for a “pre-arranged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
According to an extensive article appearing in the Pipeline & Gas Journal, “the oil and gas industry [in the Marcellus/Utica] is ready to pick up where it left off in 2019.” The Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA) says “2021 is looking up.” However, nobody in the midstream is planning to build new pipelines anytime soon. That spells trouble ahead for prices. Increasing production without new pipeline capacity to transport the increased production to other markets equals stagnant (or even falling) prices.
One of the criticisms often leveled against the shale industry is that shale drillers have destroyed shareholder value (the price of company stock) over the past decade or so (see 
It seems that EQT is a trendsetter. In January EQT announced it would partner with a Denver, CO company calling itself “Project Canary” to run a test on two of its shale gas pads, to prove the natural gas produces is “certified responsibly sourced.” A few weeks ago Chesapeake Energy said it would also use Project Canary (see 
Ohio’s Seventh District Court recently delivered a ruling that affects landowners/rights owners as well as drillers. In Tomechko v. Garrett (full copy below), the justices ruled that “adverse possession” of shallow gas rights expands to include deep gas rights (i.e. shale rights) in cases where shallow production “modified the subterranean structure.” According to the legal experts at Frost Brown Todd, “the Seventh District’s ruling strains credulity” and has the potential to “have unintended consequences and will almost certainly result in greater uncertainty and litigation.”