OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Weymouth officials say venting of natural gas allowed near compressor site; NATIONAL: Saying the quiet part out loud: anti-pipeline leader admits true motivation for activism; U.S. crude oil and natural gas production in April had biggest monthly decreases in years; Energy storage’s emerging challenge to natural gas in the power sector.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jul 15, 2020”
Yesterday our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report, the 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 July report, which predicts production for the coming month of August, estimates natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica will decrease by 210 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d)–the biggest decrease for any of the major shale plays.
Read More “EIA DPR: Marcellus/Utica Gas Production Continues Big Drop”
Whew. We can now breathe a sigh of relief. On July 7 TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission subsidiary announced an unplanned outage (for maintenance work) for the Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline in West Virginia–near Leach, Kentucky (see Mountaineer XPress Unplanned Maintenance Knocks 2 Bcf/d Offline). The “force majeure” outage knocked nearly 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas flows offline. On Saturday, July 11, TC Energy brought Mountaineer XPress back online–two days earlier than forecast.
Read More “Mountaineer Xpress Pipe Back Online After Unplanned Maintenance”
Wow! That was fast! Last week we brought you the rumor that a bill to allow incentives for petrochemical plants willing to build new facilities in Pennsylvania (generating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of investment in the state) appears to be back on after the bill was previously vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf earlier this year (see Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected). The radicals at PennFuture sounded the alarm over the weekend that House Bill (HB) 1100 is back on and that Wolf is ready to sign a revised version (see PennFuture Wages War Against Fossil Fuel Jobs in PA re HB 1100). Actually, the bill has been renamed to HB 732 and it already passed a vote by the full PA Senate yesterday!
Read More “PA Senate Votes to Pass Resurrected Petchem Bill in Record Time”
Yesterday Kinder Morgan asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to bring Elba Island Train #8 online to produce and ship LNG. Train #8 will increase Elba’s active train count to seven (out of ten). One month ago KM asked FERC for permission to begin testing Train #9 (see FERC Approves Feed Gas for Elba Island LNG Train #9). The site is getting close to completion!
Read More “KM Asks Permission to Start Up Elba Island LNG Train #8”
Pieridae Energy wants to build an LNG export plant in Nova Scotia, Canada. The project is called the Goldboro LNG project. Yesterday Pieridae announced the company they had contracted with to build Goldboro, KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root Limited), has notified Pieridae it is pulling out of the contract to build it. Pieridae says it is evaluating its legal options.
Read More “KBR Pulls Out of Deal to Build Goldboro LNG Export Plant in N.S.”
Hi-Crush Inc., a frac sand company headquartered in Houston, TX, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Hi-Crush provides frac sand/proppants to a number of shale plays across the country, including the Marcellus/Utica. In its filing, the company seeks to convert $450 million of its $699 million of debt into equity (shares of stock), diluting existing shares for existing stockholders. As is typical, existing shareholders get the short end of the stick.
Read More “Hi-Crush, Yet Another Frac Sand Co., Files for Ch. 11 Bankruptcy”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Buffet to buy interest in Dominion Gas’ Cove Point; API Ohio welcomes new well plugging rules; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to appeal Dakota Access shutdown; NATIONAL: U.S. Henry Hub natural gas spot prices reached record lows in the first half of 2020; Analyst sees more shale bankruptcies ahead; Will the left kill America’s energy dominance?; INTERNATIONAL: After decades of wrong predictions, oil may finally be peaking; Extending production cuts would be ‘suicidal’ for OPEC; Is the world ready for more OPEC and Russian oil?
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 14, 2020”
A warning right up front: This post is speculation and rumor. As you know if you’ve read MDN (or any other media source covering oil and gas in the past two weeks), on June 28 Chesapeake Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership). With something like $11 billion in outstanding debt and a market value of just over $100 million (a tiny fraction of the debt), it’s obvious debtors will take over the company. What happens then? We spotted a rumor that Cabot Oil & Gas may be interested in a purchase.
Read More “Is Cabot O&G Sniffing Around Chesapeake Energy’s Shale Assets?”
It’s time to revisit a long-festering royalty lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko Petroleum filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office. The case has been through several layers of courts and finally ended up at the PA Supreme Court last fall (see PA Supremes to Consider Long-Running Chesapeake Royalty Lawsuit). The lawsuit hinges on the answer to this question: Are landowners/royalty owners the buyers or the sellers in cases of royalty leases?
Read More “Revisiting the PA AG Royalty Case Against Chesapeake Energy”
Last week we brought you the rumor that a bill to allow incentives for petrochemical plants willing to build new facilities in Pennsylvania (generating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of investment in the state) appears to be back on after the bill was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf earlier this year (see Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected). The radicals at PennFuture, a profoundly partisan/leftist organization fueled with Big Green donations, is raising the alarm that House Bill (HB) 1100 is back on and that Wolf is ready to sign a revised version.
Read More “PennFuture Wages War Against Fossil Fuel Jobs in PA re HB 1100”
How much of an effort is “enough” when a surface landowner in Ohio tries to locate the owner(s) of the belowground mineral rights under his or her land using the Dormant Mineral Act (DMA)? Is it enough to search the public record archive in the county where the land is located? The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled in a case to say no, it’s not enough to run a quick search in one county when attempting to locate mineral rights owners.
Read More “What is “Due Diligence” in Severed Mineral Rights Cases in Ohio?”
Anti-fossil fuel nutters, emboldened by the cancelation of the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline project (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B), have turned their hopes and dreams and desires on defeating a much smaller project–the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Southgate pipeline.
Read More “After Killing ACP, Antis Attempt to Do Same to MVP Southgate”
Joe Biden is not only corrupt and senile, he’s now trying the same old ruse politicians always pull when trying to get elected: He’s outright lying in order to buy votes. All through the primary Biden has promised to kill off fracking and eliminate the use of oil and natural gas in the United States. Those are his words (see Biden Promises to End All U.S. Oil Drilling, Fracking in CNN Debate). It’s crazy. It’s the utterings of a lunatic. But that’s what the irrational left demands from its candidate. And yet in an interview with a northeastern PA TV station last week, Biden said: “Fracking is not going to be on the chopping block.” If you believe that, we have a great deal on a bridge we’d like to sell ya…
Read More “Biden Speaks from Both Sides of Mouth on Fracking to Buy Votes”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pandemic, politics threaten Marcellus jobs; Riverkeeper says it wants a DRBC of unlimited power; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Lebanon-Hanover natural gas project no longer in the pipeline; NATIONAL: In 2019, the United States produced and consumed record volumes of natural gas; U.S. drilling rig count lowest since 1975 as shale boom fades; Activist judges increasing risk to oil and gas companies.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 13, 2020”
Do you remember the child’s game called “Simon Says”? That’s what we were thinking when we read about a lawsuit in Ohio by landowners against a group of shale drillers. The lawsuit, initiated by several landowners in Belmont County, OH, claims the drillers drilled too deep–into the Point Pleasant rock layer–when the leases signed only mention the Utica rock layer. The lawsuit, which is seeking class action status, claims “unjust enrichment” by the drillers.
Read More “OH Landowners Sue Rice, Ascent, XTO, Gulfport for Drilling Too Deep”