Late last week Shell shut down all work at its ethane cracker plant site in Monaca (Beaver County), PA to test workers for COVID-19. After testing roughly 7,400 (out of 7,950) workers Shell found 141 positive results, or 1.9%. Workers began returning to the site on Wednesday.
Read More “Shell Stops Cracker Construction for 5 Days to Test for COVID”
Big Green (Democrat) organizations are feeling full of themselves following the Biden/Harris election and winning control of the Senate. They’re making some pretty big boasts of what they’ll demand from Biden and Chuck Schumer. Demands like no new pipelines, ban natural gas everywhere, force all new cars to be electric, yada yada yada. One of the worst of the worst of the Big Green groups is the radical National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In a blog post yesterday, the New York chapter of the NRDC lays out its 2021 plans that include their intent to try and block the construction of the New Jersey LNG export facility and block construction of the PennEast Pipeline in Pennsylvania.
Read More “NRDC Gears Up to Fight NJ LNG Export Facility, PennEast Pipe”
U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) set a new all-time record high in December, averaging 9.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The results in December were more than three times higher than the reduced export levels of last summer. Marcellus/Utica gas played a key role in those exports.
Read More “U.S. LNG Exports Set New Record High in December”
The Marcellus/Utica is the #1 natural gas producing play in the country. Last month the M-U region produced 33.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s December Drilling Productivity Report (see DPR: Most Shale Plays, Incl. M-U, Continue Big Drop in Production). The second highest-producing region was the Permian, producing 16.9 Bcf/d. Third highest was the Haynesville at 11.3 Bcf/d. So why do we say the Haynesville is the chief competitor to M-U?
Read More “Haynesville Shale Growing – Chief Competitor to Marcellus/Utica”
The average price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana was $2.05 per million BTUs (MMBtu) in 2020. That’s the lowest average annual price in at least 25 years, maybe longer. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says while natgas usage rose in gas-fired electric plants, usage dropped for residential, commercial, and industrial users due to the ongoing pandemic.
Read More “Henry Hub NatGas Price Averaged $2.05 in 2020, Lowest in >25 Years”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pennsylvania DEP Policy Director calls State Rep environmental criminal; NATIONAL: Enverus: expect hot oil & gas M&A market to slow in 2021; Schumer now under pressure from green left.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Fri, Jan 8, 2021”
As we entered 2020, the stock price for most Marcellus/Utica drillers was near or even at the lowest it had ever been (see Marcellus/Utica Drillers’ Stock Prices Near/At Historic Lows). Then the twin catastrophes of an oil price war (launched by Russia and Saudi Arabia) and a worldwide pandemic hit in March. As it turns out, the catastrophes ended up benefitting our shale drillers. Stock prices improved dramatically for a number of major gas drillers in the M-U after March.
Read More “M-U Drilling Co. Stocks Boomed in 2020, Positive Outlook 2021”
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani issued a couple of rulings in the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit that should encourage landowners in eastern PA whose property rights have been “taken” by the DRBC. The DRBC has prevented landowners in areas like Wayne and Pike counties from drilling for shale gas under their land for more than a decade.
NOTE: Our good friend Tom Shepstone has written an important post on this development on his Natural Gas Now website: DRBC Lawsuit Finally Going to Trial After Five Years! We encourage you to click and read it.
Read More “Judge Rules Wayne Landowner Lawsuit re DRBC Frack Ban Continues”
In February 2020 MDN brought you news about a new half-billion-dollar petrochemical plant that will convert Marcellus Shale gas into feedstock (chemicals) to be used in agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and transportation, coming in Clinton County, PA (see $500M Marcellus-Fed Petchem Plant Coming to Clinton County, PA). The project continues to make progress and is undergoing a name change.
Read More “Clinton County, PA Petchem Plant Update – NatGas + Carbon Capture”
Because of constant court challenges, the Trump administration just completed a redo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12), a general permit used in constructing pipelines. Antis believe the redo will make it easier for the incoming Biden administration to simply delete oil and gas pipelines from the permit. The cancel culture strikes again.
Read More “Antis Pressure Biden to Remove O&G Pipes from Army Corps NWP12”
Well, the apocalypse has happened. We now have single party (Democrat) rule in Washington, D.C., and that spells trouble ahead for shale energy–for both oil AND gas. We’ll keep our opinions to ourselves on the politics. What’s done is done. Instead, we’ll let the analysts from S&P tell you what you can expect with new appointments at key federal agencies, and how energy policy under the Biden administration, with a big assist from a Democrat-controlled Senate, will likely play out in the coming years.
Read More “What to Expect from Biden/Senate Democrats re Energy Policy”
Walter “Wayne” Christian is a financial planner from Center, Texas, a Republican member of the Texas Railroad Commission (Chairman), having won the position in the November 8, 2016 general election. He’s an energy expert who thinks about and deals with energy, of all sorts, every single day. Christian recently penned an article exposing the attack now happening on American energy independence by the far left. He exposes the Paris Climate Accord for the fraud it is and he calls out “woke” investors who are pressuring other investors to divest from oil and gas companies. This is one article you need to read.
Read More “American Energy Independence Under Attack on All Fronts”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: 38 green groups urge DEP to deny PennEast permits in advance of Jan. 13 hearing; Truckers making it happen in gas fields of northeast Pennsylvania; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Washington state proposes legislation to phase out natural gas utility service; Amid bullish outlook, Haynesville gas producers gear up for record output in 2021; NATIONAL: February natural gas futures soar to extend new year momentum; Crude oil prices briefly traded below $0 in spring 2020 but have since been mostly flat; Colder than usual winter boosts fossil fuel demand; Supreme Court hearing should signal shift from baseless lawsuits to realistic climate solutions; US extends 5 LNG export authorizations to 2050; Can renewables become as profitable as oil and gas?; INTERNATIONAL: Asia LNG prices skyrocket as buyers scramble for supplies amid cold snap, power shortages.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Jan 7, 2021”
Just coming to light (for us) is a decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Dec. 1, a ruling on post-production deductions by drillers when calculating gas royalties “at the wellhead” in West Virginia. The drillers, in this case, were Southwestern Energy and Equinor (formerly known as Statoil). The drillers won the right to claim certain post-production deductions.
Read More “Southwestern, Equinor Win Post-Production Deduction Lawsuit in WV”
Don’t you love playing a game with a child and part of the way through the game, the child simply changes the rules for how the game is played (particularly when they are losing)? That’s what comes to mind with the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) recent action in disallowing any pipeline bigger than 36 inches to use a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) to cross creeks, rivers, and wetlands. The move is meant to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 42-inch pipeline, from finishing its installation work (the pipeline is 92% complete).
Read More “Virginia DEQ Changes Pipe Regs in Effort to Block MVP Finish”
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) had laid 30 miles of pipeline and had cut trees for 222 miles along the 600-mile route before Dominion decided last summer it no longer wanted to be in the interstate pipeline business, canceling ACP (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B). Earlier this week Dominion filed a plan (full copy below) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to clean up and “undo” the project.
Read More “Dominion Files Plan with FERC to “Undo” Atlantic Coast Pipe Work”