Patterson-UTI Energy Says Fracking Biz has Stabilized, Improving
Patterson-UTI Energy released its third-quarter 2020 update yesterday. The company operates a number of rigs in the Marcellus/Utica region. According to its website, Patterson has 12 active rigs in the M-U (which is more than one-third of all active M-U rigs). CEO Andy Hendricks said yesterday that fracking activity across a number of shale plays is coming back and will continue to grow in 2021.
Read More “Patterson-UTI Energy Says Fracking Biz has Stabilized, Improving”
The Enverus U.S. rig count rose by 11 to 347 over the past week, after having going up by 13 the week before (see 
Petulant anti-fossil fuel nutters in New Jersey have succeeded in bullying NJ Transit into dropping a plan to build a backup (to be used in emergencies only) gas-fired power plant in Kearny, NJ. Score another victory for green bullies.
What more can we say? For those who mistakenly (stubbornly) insist that Biden couldn’t “really ban fracking,” last night sleepy/creepy Uncle Joe pledged to end the use of oil and fossil fuels and “transition away from the oil industry,” calling oil a “significant” polluter. Yes, he’s off his rocker. WAKE UP! If you work for or depend on the oil and gas industry, a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to end your job. It really is that simple. He is telling us he is coming for oil and gas jobs. PLEASE believe him.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: ReImagine Appalachia sees big job gains in turning to clean-energy economy; Grants for Appalachian Trail communities to come from Mountain Valley Pipeline gift; Rep. Conor Lamb is out of step with his district; NATIONAL: Natural gas slips, still maintains $3 handle as EIA storage print reflects tightening balances; 41 free market groups urge Senate to stand strong against powerful wind lobby; INTERNATIONAL: U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico have increased in the first nine months of 2020; Floating LNG prospects fizzle as operational issues emerge.
What do you know? All three M-U states issued new shale drilling permits last week! That’s the first time in perhaps the last two months all three states issued new shale permits in the same week. Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits, Ohio issued 3 new permits, and West Virginia issued 8 new permits.
Anti-fossil fuelers are predictable and their motives transparent. A movement anti in Chester County (liberal, far-left Democrat) wanted to expose confidential safety information about the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline public. Specifically, he wanted to reveal “blast radius” information in hopes of inflaming opposition against the pipeline in his near-religious effort to get the pipeline permanently shut down. It’s a holy war for these people. Zealotry.
The price of natural gas trading at the Henry Hub terminal in southern Louisiana, the national benchmark price used for NYMEX futures contracts, has been on a rocket ship ride up over the past two days. Two days ago the price added $0.12 in a single day (see 
American Energy Partners, Inc. (AEPT), based in Allentown, PA, is a small but diversified company. They have their fingers in a number of different oil and gas pies, including subsidies in drilling, remediation, water, valuation services, and education. AEPT announced a new deal yesterday to buy a producer with 230+ conventional natural gas wells in western Pennsylvania.
We are on the cusp of the quarterly earnings reports issued by all publicly-traded companies. In fact, EQT, the largest natural gas-producing company in the U.S., released their numbers and held a conference call this morning (we’ll report on it tomorrow). As Marcellus/Utica drillers get ready to release their third-quarter numbers, analysts on Wall Street are signaling what they want to see.
The mighty Mariner East pipeline system (ME1 and ME2) flows up to 345,000 barrels per day of NGLs, including propane and ethane, to the Philadelphia area where most of the ethane gets exported. Enterprise Products Partners’ 1,200-mile Appalachia-to-Texas (ATEX) ethane pipeline flows 145,000 barrels per day of ethane to the Gulf Coast. Even with all that ethane flowing out of our region to other markets, and even with some ethane sold and used in our region, most of the ethane produced in the M-U gets “rejected.”
Yesterday MDN told you of a new threat to LNG shipments from Louisiana with the grounding of a semi-submersible rig, blocking traffic coming from Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export terminal (see 
Rystad Energy, headquartered in Norway, is an independent energy research and business intelligence company providing data, tools, analytics and consultancy services to the global energy industry. Rystad’s latest emailed newsletter contains a forecast for North American shale oil and gas production and capital investments, with the focus on the key contributing shale plays (including the Marcellus and the Utica). It is a fascinating forecast that shows a big increase coming in both shale oil and shale gas production between now and 2030.
Pennsylvania is so lucky to have a group of talented state legislators in both the House and Senate. Last week a group of House Republicans introduced a group of new bills they have dubbed “Commonwealth’s COVID Comeback.” The bills are aimed at bringing more jobs to the Keystone State in the manufacturing and energy sector. One of the bills is squarely aimed at getting the foot-draggers at the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to approve permits faster.