Hell Freezes Over – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Endorses Trump!
We’re speechless (which doesn’t happen often). The liberal, anti-shale Democrats who write and manage the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have endorsed Donald J. Trump for president! They had plenty of criticism for Trump in their lukewarm “endorsement,” but the fact they did endorse Trump is, well, big news. The Post-Gazette editors, who haven’t endorsed a Republican for president since 1972, say “Mr. Biden is too old for the job, and fragile.” We agree.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Repsol sees possible upside in Marcellus gas; Oil and gas company donates $150K to fight food insecurity; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Democrat seeking Texas RRC post gets fundraising boost from leftists; In effort to curb emissions, state regulators probe the future of natural gas in Massachusetts; NJ building electrification not happening any time soon; NATIONAL: EIA forecasts more residential natural gas consumption this winter than last; Trump vs. Biden: there is but one choice on energy issues; Drilling and fracking accelerates ahead U.S. election; Global demand swings amplify U.S. gas market seasonality; INTERNATIONAL: The global hub for trading natural gas moves to the Netherlands; Russia’s Novak calls for closer cooperation with OPEC on natural gas; U.S. senator warns France’s Macron over gas exports deal delay; China believes natural gas demand will soar.
Dan Dinges, CEO of Cabot Oil & Gas, said last week: “2020 has proven to be the most challenging year for natural gas prices in the last 25 years, resulting from a multi-year trend of overcapitalization of both oil and natural gas assets across our industry.” Indeed. The company released its third-quarter 2020 update on Friday and reported a net loss of $15 million, compared to net income of $90.4 million in 3Q19. This is the first quarterly net loss for Cabot in recent memory. Still, there was plenty of good news coming from the 3Q update…
Range Resources issued its third-quarter 2020 update on Friday. The company, the very first driller to sink a well in the Marcellus, lost $680 million in 3Q. Most of the loss was a one-time charge called “exit and termination” related to the company’s sale of their Louisiana Haynesville Shale assets in August. The update didn’t state how many new wells were drilled in the Marcellus, but it does say Range connected 19 new wells to sales in 3Q with plans to add another 7 wells to sales by the end of the year.
While Gulfport Energy (big Ohio Utica driller) hasn’t officially filed for bankruptcy, it’s certainly a possibility (see 
The bad blood between Energy Transfer (ET) and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues. ET’s Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary is desperately trying to complete the Mariner East 2X pipeline from eastern Ohio through to Marcus Hook near Philadelphia. A recent drilling mud spill in Marsh Creek State Park prompted the DEP to demand Sunoco change the route for ME2X (which was less than 60 days from being done) to a new route around the State Park (see 
It’s all starting to come undone for FirstEnergy Corporation. Last week two of Ohio’s three largest cities sued to block annual $150 million payments to FirstEnergy’s Energy Harbor subsidiary on the basis those payments are ill-gotten gain, the result of FirstEnergy bribing government officials to pass House Bill 6 (HB 6) and keep it passed (see 
Last week EQT Corporation announced a deal to buy Chevron’s considerable Marcellus/Utica assets (land and wells) for the lowball price of $735 million (see 
CNX Resources issued its third-quarter 2020 update yesterday. The company didn’t bother to issue the usual narrative describing what happened during 3Q. Instead, they simply pushed out the financials, a slide deck, and spoke to analysts on a conference call. What did we learn picking through the numbers and the conference call transcript? One thing we learned is that CNX has no interest in being merged with EQT, that’s for sure.
Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, working primarily in West Virginia, issued its third-quarter 2020 update yesterday. The company lost $536 million due to a $749 million “unrealized commodity hedge movement in fair value.” High finance stuff. Production averaged 3.8 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), which includes a lot of liquids (NGLs).
In July, now-former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates were indicted for felonies related to an alleged $60 million bribery scandal in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see 
The Enverus U.S. rig count rose by 1 to 348 over the past week, after having going up by 11 and 13 (respectively) the two weeks prior. However, the count in the Marcellus Shale dropped by three rigs in the wet gas area and the Marcellus dry gas region gained 1 rig, for a net loss of two.
When checking the NYMEX futures price for natural gas, which is based on the spot price at the Henry Hub in southern Louisiana, we had a surprise. Just a few days ago the NYMEX was showing right around $3 per million BTUs (or per Mcf, thousand cubic feet). Yesterday the price closed at $3.30/Mcf. Why the huge jump?
Rystad Energy says worldwide the oil and gas industry has lost some 400,000 jobs in 2020. About half of those, says Rystad, are jobs lost in the U.S. Reuters is quoting Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette as saying U.S. oil production will likely not return to its pre-pandemic peak of 13 million barrels of production per day–at least not any time soon. Ergo, those jobs are not coming back any time soon.