Blue Racer Midstream Extends $750M Line of Credit by 3 Years
Blue Racer Midstream is a privately held natural gas midstream company that provides natural gas gathering and processing, mixed NGL fractionation and condensate stabilization, and NGL marketing and transportation, to producers operating in the Marcellus/Utica in southeastern Ohio and the panhandle of West Virginia. Last week the company issued a press release to say its banking buddies have amended and restated Blue Racer’s credit facility (i.e. line of credit) allowing the company to borrow up to $750 million. The bankers also extended the payback term by three years to 2025. That’s a whopping big line of credit for a relatively small midstream company. We guess you could say Blue Racer has an exceptional FICO score…
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We’re not big fans of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat). He hails from Republican-leaning West Virginia, so he has to pass himself off as a “moderate” Democrat. When push comes to shove, we’ve noticed Manchin falls into line and obsequiously obeys Chuck Schumer’s commands. Yet perhaps, hope against hope, Manchin will show some spine and refuse to sign on to the $2 trillion shale energy-killing “infrastructure” plan Biden is pushing.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: As a large company’s president, I support RGGI to make Pa.’s businesses greener; NATIONAL: Could tiny sensors keep methane out of our atmosphere–and homes?; INTERNATIONAL: An anti-global warming hysteria book is driving Norwegian warming hysterics nuts; Russia tightens its grip on Europe’s natural gas markets.
One of the brightest of the bright spots in the Marcellus/Utica shale industry has been shale’s effect on local economies and jobs, as in more money and jobs flow to shale drilling counties. To counter all that good news left-leaning “media” outlets like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have run hit pieces, like this article in February: 
The deed is done. On Saturday, the last day of the legislative session in 2021, the West Virginia Senate unanimously passed House Bill (HB) 2581 which changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes. As we told you last Thursday, the Senate version modified the bill from its original intent of allowing landowners to claim big deductions (see 
Last week in our “best of the rest” links we included a note that one of the co-founders of Antero Resources, Glen Warren, is retiring effective the end of this month. Warren is currently President and Chief Financial Officer of Antero Resources and President of Antero Midstream. What we didn’t know at the time, but has since come to light, is a major reshuffling in top management that will happen following his departure.
Cheniere Energy, the biggest LNG exporter operating in the U.S., published a “Climate Scenario Analysis Report” last week (full copy below). The report analyzes the long-term resilience of Cheniere’s business and the potential implications for LNG supply and demand in various future climate scenarios through 2040. Cheniere predicts LNG demand and exports to continue growing through 2040, but after that, LNG will decline due to continued global action to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
Dan Rice IV, former CEO of Rice Energy and a board member of EQT Corp. (where his younger brother is now the CEO), is making a big bet–we’d call it a gamble–of $1 billion on so-called renewable natural gas, mainly from landfills. Rice’s “blank-check” acquisition firm, called Rice Acquisition Corp., is acquiring and merging together Archaea Energy ($347 million) and Aria Energy ($680 million) into a single company focused on providing renewable natural gas (RNG) and “green” hydrogen.
MDN editor Jim Willis attended (remotely) yesterday’s 
Last week MDN told you that Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA, had sued its joint venture partner Chesapeake Energy over Chessy’s refusal to allow Epsilon to drill four shale wells on land Chessy doesn’t want to drill (see 
The Enverus U.S. rig count continues to climb (a good sign). For the week ending April 7, the U.S. rig count climbed another 9 active rigs to 528. The Marcellus lost two rigs and ended the week with 31 active rigs. The Ohio Utica added one rig and now has 13 active rigs. The M-U combined has 44 active rigs. The other major shale gas play, the Haynesville, stayed even with 48 active rigs.