Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Apr 17, 2020
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Natural gas plant construction causes concerns for Native American landowners; NATIONAL: Worry & appreciation…The energy workforce reacts to COVID-19; A wave of oil bankruptcies is on the way; Second-wave U.S. LNG projects stagnate amid market uncertainty; U.S. says oil tariffs still on the table even after OPEC+ deal; INTERNATIONAL: Saudi minister: ‘Not our intent to damage U.S. shale.’ Really?; Oil demand down nearly 30%, April worst month in 25 years: IEA; China is stocking up on cheap LNG.
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Chesapeake Energy pulled the trigger on a reverse stock split after the close of trading on Tuesday, combining 200 shares into one single new share (see 
As cases of COVID-19 coronavirus began to climb in relatively rural Beaver County, PA, local politicians pressured Shell to stop work on the mighty ethane cracker plant facility they are building in Monaca. Shell quickly complied, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see 
Officials from both Delaware County and Chester County (suburbs of Philadelphia) sent a letter to state officials earlier this week asking the state to once again shut down critical work being done on the Mariner East 2 pipeline project. The county officials, at the prompting (control?) of the uber-leftist and radical Clean Air Council, are using the COVID-19 crisis as their excuse to try and shut down work on the project. In their letter, county officials cite unnamed and anecdotal “sources” who claim (lie?) that workers on the pipeline are violating social-distancing rules–at work and off. Ninny nannies tattling. Do you think workers would jeopardize their own health and the health of their families? No, we don’t think so either.
We see a very positive sign that the U.S. Supreme Court is potentially interested in accepting and ruling on a case of tremendous importance to the oil and gas industry. The case is PennEast Pipeline v State of New Jersey. NJ is attempting to block the PennEast project by denying it access to run across tracts of land either owned or controlled by the state, claiming federal eminent domain authority does not apply to state-owned land. NJ won the case in lower courts and PennEast appealed it all the way to the Supremes, who have now taken an active interest. No, they haven’t officially accepted the case…yet. But they have just signaled a strong interest.
Back in December MDN told you that Thailand’s Banpu, which has invested $500 million so far in the Pennsylvania Marcellus, had developed a wandering eye and cut a deal to buy Devon Energy’s Barnett Shale assets in Texas for $770 million (see 
Economists at consulting powerhouse The Brattle Group have released an assessment/report on the impacts through early April 2020 of COVID-19 on the electric and natural gas industries. The report (full copy below) summarizes recent developments in energy commodity spot and forward pricing, electricity demand, and financial markets, and speculates on what will happen if the pandemic persists. One of the surprising findings (for us) is that weather is having far more effect on keeping natgas prices low than COVID-19. There’s plenty of charts and analysis–really good stuff to ponder. Battle Group has a lot of smart people thinking about this stuff.
“Keep it in the Ground” (KIITG) has been the rallying cry of idiotic, low-brain function environmentalists for the past 3-4 years. They want “fossil fuels” to be kept in the ground, never to be developed. President Trump is mulling over a plan to KIITG–but not in the same way. Advisers to the President are proposing that the federal government pay for oil from American producers now, at historically low prices, but that the producers don’t deliver the oil right now. In fact, don’t drill at all–just keep it in the ground, out of the world market, in an attempt to lower world oil supplies and prop up the price.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has reached an agreement with Range Resources that forces Range to pay $198,920 in fines for violations of state regulations and the Air Pollution Control Act–violations that happened in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Our reading is that most of the violations revolve around Range not filing the right paperwork.
A lot of things have changed over the past month since COVID-19 coronavirus lockdowns were instituted in many states, including New York and Pennsylvania. Some sleazy politicians, like Andrew Cuomo and the far-left Democrats in the New York State legislature, took advantage of the crisis to pass damaging legislation while no one paid attention (see 
We’ve previously brought you various articles, and comments on articles, describing how Marcellus/Utica drillers may benefit from the current crash in global oil prices. How? A number of oil drillers in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota and other oil states are not only not drilling new wells right now, but they’re also not completing previously drilled wells and in some cases, they are shutting in existing/flowing wells. All of which means there will be a rapid decline in the amount of “associated gas” being produced in those states. Less associated gas means less supply and less supply means higher prices–for M-U drillers. We spotted an article that does a good job at defining how this will likely play out. How much less associated gas can we expect? What does that mean for natgas prices (when will they go higher)? What if the price of oil is $40/barrel rather than $30/barrel?
We’ve been dreading this month’s edition of normally our favorite report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR estimates how much oil and natural gas each of the country’s seven largest shale plays produced in the previous (current) month, and how much each will produce in the coming (next) month. The past few months have seen a big decline in Marcellus/Utica gas production, more than half a Bcf/d (see