Last Wednesday Stephanie Catarino Wissman, Executive Director of API (American Petroleum Institute) of Pennsylvania provided a “State of the State” update to the PA House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee. She discussed a number of topics, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Marcellus Shale.
Read More “API’s “State of the State” for Oil & Gas Industry in Pennsylvania”
You have to admire Canadian driller Questerre Energy–they never give up. Questerre has patiently waited for years to begin drilling on their extensive Utica Shale acreage in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, Canada. Quebec is like New York–completely closed to the oil and gas industry, particularly shale and fracking (see Quebec to Ban Utica Shale Drilling, Most Other Drilling Too). And yet Questerre keeps trying. Now the company is touting hydrogen (from natural gas) as the reason they should be allowed to drill in the Utica. Will this new argument work?
Read More “Questerre Still Trying to Convince Quebec to Let Them Drill Utica”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Tellurian in market for more Haynesville assets to feed Driftwood LNG; Cheniere eyes start of LNG output from ninth train by end of 2021; NATIONAL: Trump: Biden’s policies to bring ‘energy disaster’ to the U.S.; Fossil fuel demand seen growing through 2030s; Privately-held shale drillers poised to create headaches for OPEC; Opposing natural gas pipelines means opposing natural gas users; Midstreamers’ ESG agendas focus on reining in methane, CO2 emissions.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Mar 2, 2021”
The data crunchers at the Pittsburgh Business Times have been sifting through the data for 2020 and have composed a list of the “Largest Pennsylvania Shale Gas Drillers in 2020.” The PBT list ranks drillers by the number of wells drilled in PA for all time, including right up through the end of 2020. We resorted their list to reveal the number of wells “added” (drilled) in PA for 2020, to generate the following list of the top 10 drillers from 2020:
Read More “Top 10 Shale Drillers in PA for 2020, by Number of Wells Drilled”
Southwestern Energy, a pure-play Marcellus/Utica driller with 786,000 net acres and operations in all three M-U states (concentrates drilling in WV and northeastern PA) issued its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 update last Friday. Perhaps the biggest news for Southwestern in 2020 was its purchase and merging in of another sizable driller, Montage Resources (see Southwestern Completes Montage Merger, Now 3rd Largest M-U Co.). Southwestern reports losing $3.1 billion in 2020, but most of it ($2.8 billion) was a write-down of certain assets and most of the rest ($818 million) was a change in tax recording. In other words, almost all of the “loss” was a paper loss.
Read More “Southwestern 2020 Update: Drilled 98 Wells, Avg 2.7 Bcf/d, Lost $3.1B”
Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is gone! In March 2020 midstream (pipeline) giant Williams issued a press release to say they had just swallowed a poison pill (see Williams Swallows Poison Pill to Prevent Company Takeover). The “limited duration stockholder rights agreement” was set to expire a year later, March 20th of this year. A Delaware court last week struck down the poison pill measure, less than a month before its expiration. Big whup–it’s already done its job.
Read More “Delaware Court Strikes Down Williams Poison Pill Provision”
Apparently, the staff who run the day-to-day business of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is incompetent and can’t defend itself. Every time they are challenged in court, they run crying to mommy and daddy (Teresa Heinz Kerry at the Heinz Endowments and Shawn McCaney at the William Penn Foundation), which in turns launders money (i.e. hires lawyers) through the Delaware Riverkeeper to help bail the DRBC out of legal trouble. A federal judge (appointed by swamp-dweller George W. Bush) ruled last week to allow Riverkeeper (Heinz & Wm. Penn) to “intervene” (become a party to) a lawsuit launched by Pennsylvania Senate Republicans against the DRBC over the organization’s illegal taking of property rights by banning fracking in the river basin.
Read More “Fed Judge Allows Big Green Interference in PA Senate v. DRBC Lawsuit”
On Friday Pennsylvania state legislators held two different remote/video hearings about the future of energy and fossil fuels in the state. Radical leftists who have taken over the Democrat Party are alarmed that the House Democratic Caucus, which lists climate change as a top priority, dedicated more than half of a two-hour hearing on “21st Century Energy Jobs” to speakers extolling the virtues of natural gas and coal. In our new woke, cancel culture where free speech is dead and any idea that doesn’t agree with the left is verboten, this just isn’t acceptable (so say the wokers)!
Read More “Some PA Democrat Politicos Still Rational, Support Fossil Fuels”
It’s kind of hard to consider the City of Pittsburgh as the “energy capital of the Northeast” when its mayor and now its namesake institution of higher learning are both virulent anti-fossil fuelers. University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) trustees on Friday agreed to continue phasing out fossil fuel investments in the school’s $4.3 billion endowment and become completely divested from fossil fuels by 2035 (14 years from now). That’s not fast enough for the petulant, childish kids whose parents pay their steep tuition bills at Pitt. The spoiled kids want the university to divest NOW, darnit (feet stomping on the floor)…
Read More “Univ of Pittsburgh Divesting Fossil Fuels by 2035, Kids Throw Fit”
Well, what do you know? Donald Trump’s National Economic Council Director, Larry Kudlow, was absolutely right. We’re beginning to see a V-shaped recovery. Kudlow predicted the economy would bounce right back after the pandemic subsided. S&P Global Platts is showing there is a dramatic V-shaped recovery happening with natural gas production right now.
Read More “US NatGas Production Hits 11-Mo High, Trump V-Shaped Recovery”
NATIONAL: U.S. shale oil just had its worst year and the pain could bleed into 2021; Fossil fuel fears blind those seeking green energy nirvana to reality; Baker Hughes discloses SEC probe over projects affected by U.S. sanctions; The economy, oil demand and prices.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Mar 1, 2021”
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), a quasi-governmental organization composed of four states (NY, PA, DE, NJ) plus the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, voted yesterday to permanently ban fracking within the boundaries of the DRBC’s jurisdiction, which includes Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania where there is abundant Marcellus Shale deposits. But don’t despair. The DRBC is in the midst of two legal challenges and one (or both) is sure to win, reversing the illegal action taken yesterday. Chin up! The sun will rise again.
Read More “DRBC Jumps Off Cliff – Votes to Permanently Ban Fracking”
Remember the statement, uttered by then-candidate Joe Biden as he stood in Bucks County, PA (which sits in the Delaware River Basin) when he emphatically promised PA residents and union workers, “I’m not banning fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else!”? It took him slightly less than five weeks to break that promise. Yesterday the Biden administration, in the form of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which is an Executive Branch agency) abstained and then voiced moral support for the DRBC’s vote to ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin. That action bans fracking in two northeastern PA counties where there are frackable shale deposits (see today’s lead story). FIVE WEEKS. Still happy you voted for lyin’ Biden?
Read More “Biden Breaks “No Frack Ban” Promise to PA 5th Week in Office”
Some good news to share on this Friday. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has given National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) the green light to begin construction on its FM100 pipeline project. The FM100 Project will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network in northwestern Pennsylvania to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see NFG FM100 Pipe Project in NW PA to Feed Marcellus Gas to Transco).
Read More “FERC Gives OK for NFG’s FM100 Pipeline to Begin PA Construction”
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is sticking its sticky fingers into the pocket of Energy Transfer/Sunoco one more time, and this time drawing out nearly half a million dollars to pay for a series of small spills of nontoxic drilling mud in Snitz Creek in Lebanon County. It isn’t the first time the DEP has fined ET for Mariner East 2 (ME2) work. We’ve lost track of how many millions of dollars ET/Sunoco has paid in various fines–some of it legit, some of it (in our opinion), not legit.
Read More “PA DEP Picks Pocket of Sunoco Another $497,000 for ME2 Pipe”
Last fall Mountaineer NGL Storage, a $500 million project in Monroe County, OH to build underground storage for ethane and other NGLs, asked Ohio regulators to cancel a key permit for the project (see Mountaineer Asks Ohio to Cancel NGL Storage Hub Permits). Our understanding was that until PTT Global Chemical makes a final investment decision (FID) to build an ethane cracker in nearby Belmont County, OH, Mountaineer would not be ready to proceed. The two projects will move along together. We thought Mountaineer would wait to reapply for the permit after PTT announces. PTT has not announced, yet according to statements from Mountaineer’s CEO, the company is now waiting on permits to proceed and hopes to begin construction “later this year.” Ergo they have already reapplied.
Read More “Mountaineer NGL Storage Hub Reapplies for Permits, Building Soon?”