More M-U Cos. Join ONE Future Low Methane Emissions Group
A coalition of upstream (drilling), midstream (pipeline), and downstream (utility) companies formed an industry group called ONE Future back in 2014. The aim of the group is to lower methane emissions across all aspects of the natural gas infrastructure system nationwide and to emit (lose into the atmosphere) no more than 1% by 2025. A number of Marcellus/Utica companies have joined (see our previous ONE Future stories here). Since March, nine more companies have joined, including Blue Racer Midstream, Tug Hill Operating, and Banpu. It’s a stampede!
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New Fortress Energy, which likes to build and own as much of the LNG supply chain as possible, built and finished an LNG import terminal in San Juan, Puerto Rico in early 2020. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) then dinged the company, asking for an explanation as to why they built it without FERC permission (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Republican Joe Gale seeks Pennsylvania gubernatorial nomination; Cimarex Energy and Cabot Oil & Gas deal not seeing much love from Wall Street; NATIONAL: Pew poll: Two-thirds of Americans don’t want to phase out fossil fuels; Battle brews over banning natural gas to homes; The energy transition won’t happen without secure mineral supply chains; INTERNATIONAL: Natural gas producers jockey for position as focus shifts to hydrogen; The current legal onslaught is unlikely to limit world oil production significantly.
MDN will not publish today, Monday, May 31, in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. A shout out to all of our currently serving and former veterans, and remembrance for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. They are not forgotten.
Last fall MDN told you that a Marcellus-fired power plant planned for Clinton County, PA called the Renovo Energy Center, had come back to life as an even bigger project that will produce 1,240 megawatts of electricity when it gets built (see 
It’s been ten long years since Windfall Oil and Gas first floated a plan to drill a shale wastewater injection well near Dubois, in Brady Township (Clearfield County), PA. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a permit for the well in 2015. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection approved the project in March 2018 (see 
Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6 law granted billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy bribed state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million to a small group of insiders, including the now-former Speaker of the House (see 
Here’s a new one for us. An oil and gas consultant says maybe we should just forget about fracking. Keep drilling oil and gas wells, but don’t use fracking. He says natural micro and macro fractures already exist in the rock and if you drill it right using a technique called “Near Balanced Reservoir Drilling,” you can tap existing deposits of gas and oil at half the price. Is he right?
We never thought we would write these words: The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Joe Biden is even worse than it was under Barack Hussein Obama. Biden’s choice to head the EPA, North Carolina’s Michael Regan, is aggressively targeting natural gas, attempting to harm the industry in any way he can. This week he’s targeted natgas in two specific ways: (1) by encouraging FERC to reclassify new pipeline projects as “stranded assets” meaning they shouldn’t get approved, and (2) by repealing Trump’s rightsizing of Clean Water Act 401 permits, once again allowing states to block pipelines using the 401 permit, thereby harming their neighbors by blocking interstate commerce (in contravention to the U.S. Constitution). Regan is a vicious radical, totally out of control. He’s corrupting not only his own agency, but another agency (FERC) as well.
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 
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.