Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, Jun 18, 2020
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: ‘Desperate’ to get natural gas out of Appalachia, pipeline builders face long battle; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: WE Energies eyes Ixonia for gas storage facility; Officials want emails with climate activists and private lawyers kept from public; NATIONAL: US shale companies to boost oil output by 500,000 bpd by month-end; INTERNATIONAL: Why natural-gas prices haven’t yet bottomed despite this year’s 20% drop; U.S. is the surprising winner in China’s LNG market; Saudi oil exports to U.S. plunge toward lowest level in 35 years.
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The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) finally restarted issuing permits for Utica drilling last week after a month-long drought of not issuing any new permits. There were 10 new permits issued in PA for shale drilling June 8-12. There were 6 new permits issued in OH for shale drilling during the same time period. There were no new permits issued in WV for shale drilling last week.
A word you will likely see a lot more of in quarterly updates by oil and gas drillers across the country is the word “impairment.” It’s an accounting term that means the value of an asset (leased acreage or wells) is adjusted, down, to reflect a company’s best guess as to how much revenue that asset can generate. We wrote about impairments back in 2015 (see 
Equitrans, formerly EQT Midstream, separated from EQT in November 2018. Equitrans, via its EQM Midstream affiliate, gathers, processes, and flows most of EQT’s natural gas production, getting it to market. In February Equitrans announced it will absorb EQM, a limited partnership, into the fold (see 
We previously told you that Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, a long-time champion for the Marcellus Shale industry, would leave office as of Monday (see 
Vallourec, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, manufactures steel pipes used in the oil and gas industry. The company employs some 19,000 people in 20 countries, including the U.S. In fact, Vallourec employed (at least at one time, prior to recent layoffs) more than 750 at three Youngstown, Ohio units: Vallourec Star, VAM USA and Vallourec USA Corp. The company has just announced a new high torque connection for shale drill pipes, something they call “a technological breakthrough for the industry.”
We finally have a major court victory over the forces of anti-fossil fuel evil, so let’s sit back and soak in the warmth and sunshine of this moment. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a decision we expected, a decision that allows Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a 600-mile project from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, to cross under the Appalachian Trail. The decision is not only a victory for ACP, which is only about 6% built, but also a victory for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is 92% built. MVP also needs to pass under the Trail.
We’ve been on bankruptcy watch for Chesapeake Energy for some time now. We told you yesterday that the company faced a $17 million debt payment deadline yesterday, and faces a $134 million bond interest payment on July 1 (see 
The door has been closed on “Dimock” (in Susquehanna County, PA) for years. Dimock, you may recall, was made famous by Josh Fox’s so-called documentaries Gasland and Gasland 2, aired endlessly on HBO. His allegations about fracking malfeasance by Cabot Oil & Gas were completely debunked in a real documentary called 
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 June report, which predicts production for the coming month of July, estimates natural gas production in the Permian basin has just about stabilized (will go down just a little). However, natgas production in the Marcellus/Utica will continue to drop like a rock in the coming month.
The ne’er-do-wells from Big Green groups including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch and a mish-mash of other loudmouths are attempting to bully the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) into overturning their previous decision to allow a simple ship dock to get built along the shore of the Delaware River in New Jersey so ships can load LNG already liquefied and waiting. Given the DRBC’s weak leadership, we wonder if the DRBC will (again) cave to the demands of the radicals.
After spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate Range Resources over a simple regulatory matter settled years ago by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, PA’s leftist Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, announced on Friday he had finally bullied Range into pleading “no contest” to so-called environmental crimes (misdemeanors), forcing the company to pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 to Shapiro’s favorite Big Green charities. Does that sound like a success to you? Shapiro spent multiple hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to force the company to pay $150K. Sounds like Shapiro is The Biggest Loser to us.