Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 1, 2020
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Mama Bear Brigade protest in red Delaware County violates stay-at-home order; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: How Cheniere Energy plans to survive the oil and gas downturn; Trial over: California group says natural gas engines have proven their worth; NATIONAL: Renewables overtake coal, but lag far behind oil and natural gas; Using smart tracer technology to make shale drilling cheaper; Consolidation coming: Oil companies set to party like it’s 1999; FERC commissioners dispute natural gas project approvals; America’s oil and natural gas investments must continue apace; Natural gas is losing its shine for ship operators; Could the worst be over for America’s oil frackers?; Rise of remote working is ‘biggest threat to oil demand,’ says analyst.
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Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. In January 2019 we told you about Peregrine’s purchase of rights from undisclosed sellers in southwest PA (see 
On Wednesday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging whether or not the state Attorney General’s office has the right to use a consumer protection law to prosecute companies like Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko over royalty payment shenanigans. The law the AG’s office wants to use has never been used that way before. According to legal experts, drillers are very concerned if the AG’s office wins this one, as we reported last November (see 
For the past month and a half, MDN has brought you rig count data from Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo) each Friday. Last Friday we reported the count had hit a new modern-day low, but that the Marcellus had gained back one of the seven rigs lost over a previous three week period (see 
A new so-called “study” published in the journal Science of The Total Environment claims it has uncovered a link between fracking chemicals in farm water and a rare birth defect in horses. The researchers say this study “could” serve as a warning about fracking and human infant health. Is this it? Were we wrong for the past 11 years about the safety of fracking? Is this THE END?
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in six unconventional resource basins, including the Marcellus and Utica. The company concentrates its time and money on four “core focus areas” including the Utica, the Williston (i.e. Bakken), the DJ Basin, and the Permian. The company announced yesterday it has completed the buyout of a subsidiary and merged it in. Hidden in the bowels of the press release we discovered Bob McNally, former (ousted) CEO of EQT Corporation, has joined the board of directors at Summit.
Two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that consulting powerhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which had been hired to liquidate the assets of Australian company LNG Limited (LNGL), had found a buyer for the Magnolia LNG export project for $2.25 million (see 
No sooner had we started producing weekly new shale permits issued reports than the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) website experienced some sort of catastrophic failure. While portions of the site have now returned, they still do not have the database reconnected that delivers weekly updates for new permits. We decided we could not wait any longer on ODNR to get their act together. Below are weekly reports detailing the names and locations for each new permit issued in both PA and WV for the weeks of May 11-15, and May 18-22.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 790, a bill that restores sanity to regulations for conventional oil and gas drillers in the Keystone State. For years PA’s small, independent conventional oil and gas drillers have objected to the one-size-fits-all regulations concocted by the Gov. Tom Wolf Administration that applies the same regulations to them as to big shale drillers. The two types of drilling are apples and oranges. To make small conventional drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will bankrupt many of the smaller companies. SB 790 helps correct the situation.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the “lifeblood” of the global energy system is…investment. That is, money. Without investment, new sources of energy don’t appear. In 2016 IEA began to publish an annual report called World Energy Investment, in order to track spending on all forms of energy worldwide. Earlier this week IEA published its fifth annual version of the report. In the report, IEA says 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic, will mark the largest-ever collapse in global energy investment in history. IEA says the coming investment decline will impact oil the most.
David Blackmon, a senior contributor to the Forbes magazine website and 39-year veteran working for various oil companies including Burlington Resources, Shell, and El Paso Corporation, is one of our favorite experts to read on matters relating to the oil patch. He is a strong O&G supporter. So when we spotted a recent Forbes article Blackmon wrote titled, “Why The Brief Era Of American Energy Dominance Is Over,” that sure got our attention.
Last week MDN editor Jim Willis had the pleasure and honor of being the 
EQT announced yesterday it has closed on a deal to sell “certain non-strategic assets” to Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) for $125 million, plus another potential $20 million later on. MDN first told you about this deal on May 13 (see