The Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia (IOGAWV) and the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA), West Virginia’s two oil and gas trade associations, announced yesterday their members have voted to merge the two into one new organization called the Gas and Oil Association of WV (GO-WV).
Read More “WV’s Two O&G Trade Groups (IOGAWV & WVONGA) Merge, Form New Assoc.”
While so-called “activist investors” can sometimes accomplish good things (like the Rice boys in their takeover of EQT last year), it is our observation that most “activist investors” are destructive. A new hedge fund calling itself Engine No. 1 is one such destructive company. The hedge fund, based in San Francisco (which explains a lot) has ExxonMobil in its sights, attempting a hostile takeover of the company by getting four of its own candidates named to the board, and after that, forcing Exxon (an oil company) to forsake oil drilling and focus on “clean energy.”
Read More “Predatory Hedge Fund “Engine No. 1” Targets Exxon for Takeover”
Last Friday MDN posted a link to news in our “best of the rest” about an amazing new discovery that we think needs more attention. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a new low-toxicity (very safe) mixture that converts natural gas into a solid, non-explosive form of ice, making it easy to transport and store. Get ready for a new term: SNG.
Read More “SNG: Researchers Convert NatGas to a Solid for Storage, Shipping”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA DEP hosts Dec. 15 webinar on transitioning to new ePermitting system for oil & gas well permits; NATIONAL: January natural gas plunges to $2.40 as ‘domination of warmth’ set to continue in December; Retreat by big banks could mean more upstream oil and gas bankruptcies in 2021; US LNG export terminals operate at or near capacity heading into peak winter use; INTERNATIONAL: Commodities 2021: India’s growing love for spot LNG may shift import strategy; Traffic at the Panama Canal and its impacts on LNG economics; The IMF’s net-zero fairy tale.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Dec 8, 2020”
A glycol dehydration unit (removes water vapor from natural gas) caught fire at an Alta Resources well pad in Lycoming County, PA, on Saturday. The two-alarm blaze was noticed by a passerby Saturday morning. Multiple fire departments responded and fortunately, nobody was hurt. The fire did not spread beyond the glycol dehydration unit.
Read More “Two-Alarm Fire at Alta Resources Well Pad in Lycoming County, PA”
Coincidentally, a second dehydration unit fire occurred early Saturday morning, also in Pennsylvania, but this second fire occurred across the state in southwest PA. Our lead story today is about a dehydration unit fire at a well pad in Lycoming County (see Two-Alarm Fire at Alta Resources Well Pad in Lycoming County, PA). The second fire happened at a dehydration unit at a compressor station in Greene County owned and operated by Equitrans Midstream.
Read More “Explosion, Fire at Equitrans Compressor Stn in Greene County, PA”
After selling Rice Energy to EQT in 2017, the four Rice brothers, all of whom worked at Rice Energy (and left after the merger), launched a new venture (see Rice Brothers Act II – $200M Marcellus/Utica Investment Firm). Dan, Toby, Derek, and Ryan Rice plus a fifth partner, a former VP at Rice, pooled $200 million of their money (and their expertise) and launched Rice Investment Group (RIG). One of the companies they invested in provides a cool (free) online website for both drillers AND landowners, offering instant valuations for the oil and gas rights along with the location of wells drilled nearby.
Read More “Free Website Helps M-U Landowners Estimate O&G Values”
New Jersey Resources Corp. (NJR), one of five owners in the PennEast Pipeline (with a 20% stake), had some interesting things to say about the PennEast project during its annual Analyst Day event held last Monday. NJR CEO Stephen Westhoven said during the virtual event that “uncertainty around an in-service date” has prompted his company to pull the project “completely” from its financial growth projections through 2024. What does that mean?
Read More “New Jersey Resources Deletes PennEast Pipe from Projections”
Why are anti-fossil fuelers always so angry? Have you ever noticed that? A case in point is Congressman Stephen Lynch (liberal Democrat from Massachusetts) who is demanding Enbridge shut down a multi-million dollar compressor station in Weymouth, Mass. that is now, as of this week, in the process of coming online (see Weymouth, MA Compressor Station Starts Up on Friday, Dec. 4).
Read More “Elected Reps Continue to Trash Talk Weymouth Compressor Station”
Natural gas-fired electric generation has increased in most U.S. regions since 2015, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Annual electricity generation from natural gas power plants in the U.S. increased by 31% in the Northeast region, by 20% in the Central region, and by 17% in the South region between 2015 and 2019.
Read More “NatGas-Fired Power Plants in M-U See Dramatic Increase 2015-2019”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: State Environmental Agency Assn., led by DEP Sec. McDonnell, meets with Biden EPA transition team; NATIONAL: Shale executives see little chance of significant growth; U.S. natural gas beats Covid-19; Peak oil demand, really? Some lessons from the debate over peak supply; Energy majors, utilities back Biden’s call to enact bipartisan climate legislation; INTERNATIONAL: Denmark to end oil and gas era in 2050; US calls for ‘moratorium’ on Nord Stream 2 pipeline; How OPEC sees the oil market in 2021.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Dec 7, 2020”
Earlier this week the NYMEX natural gas futures contract for December rolled off and the January contract became the “front contract” being traded. The latest storage numbers–how much gas has *not* been withdrawn from storage–combined with weather forecasts and computerized trading to hammer prices. Natgas was down 10 cents on Wednesday, and down another 27 cents yesterday, for a combined 37 cent loss over the past two days. Yuck. But it’s not all bad news, at least here in the Marcellus/Utica.
Read More “NYMEX NatGas Price Crashes – Down $0.37 in 2 Days, Now $2.51”
The first of 10 LNG (liquefied natural gas) mini-trains at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island, Georgia export facility went online in December of last year (see Elba Island Finally Exported First Marcellus LNG Cargo on Friday). Since that time, the other nine trains have come online one at a time, with the last unit going into service in August (see Final Elba Island LNG Train Goes into Service – All 10 Now Online). As happens with these facilities, each year the owner/operator will take units offline for maintenance. Some of Elba’s 10 trains are offline for maintenance right now, but not all of them.
Read More “Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island LNG Partially Down for Maintenance”
The clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (one of whom quotes from children’s books in her opinions) have signaled they will overturn, again (for the second or third time) a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allows the 92% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from finishing its work by installing pipe under or through creeks and rivers. We have the Sierra Club to thank for the lawsuit, and colluding liberal Democrat judges to thank for continued obstruction of this legally-permitted project from finishing.
Read More “4th Circuit Clown Judges Signal They’ll Overturn MVP Permit, Again”
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is in major butt-covering mode with the state’s conventional (non-shale) oil and gas industry. During an industry-led advisory committee meeting held yesterday, members of PA’s conventional oil and gas industry delivered some rather blunt comments to DEP Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management Scott Perry, accusing the DEP of “ramming the most punitive set of regulations on this industry to date.”
Read More “O&G Industry Calls Out PA DEP for “Appalling” Conventional Regs”
On Wednesday, Hart Energy held its annual DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event. This year the event was virtual instead of in-person at the convention center in Pittsburgh. One acronym seemed to be on the lips of nearly every speaker at this year’s event: ESG, which stands for “environment, social, governance.” Speakers said if Marcellus/Utica companies want to get new investment from the big money libs who now control the financial markets, they better “talk the talk and walk the walk” when it comes to ESG.
Read More “M-U Companies Must “Walk the ESG Walk” to Get Investment Money”