NATIONAL: EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production to fall in 2020 and 2021; Could plugging orphan wells keep the suffering oil industry afloat?; INTERNATIONAL: Oil not alone as natural gas demand set for largest decline on record in 2020, IEA says; Asian LNG prices spike 20% as demand returns; Coronavirus and climate change: a tale of two hysterias.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, May 15, 2020”
Shell continues to ramp back up work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company has announced plans to add 300 employees back each week until they are back up to full compliment.
Read More “Shell Adding Back 300 Workers a Week at Cracker Construction Site”
We have some exclusive news to share about a northeast PA LNG plant project. In August 2018, New Fortress Energy announced plans to build at least one LNG liquefying plant in Wyalusing, PA (see Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA). The plant will cost $800 million to build and use some 500 workers to build it. Work began last year to clear the site in preparation for construction (see Work Continues to Clear Site for NEPA Landlocked LNG Export Plant). The big news is…
Read More “Work on New Fortress LNG Export Plant in Wyalusing Heats Up”
Earlier this week the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) held a promised hearing to consider its previous decision to approve a request by New Fortress Energy to build a $96 million 1,600-foot-long pier/dock on the Delaware River. The dock will be used for docking and loading two ships at a time with LNG. The only parties allowed to speak were DRBC, New Fortress, and THE Delaware Riverkeeper, the arrogant Big Green group trying to stop the dock and the LNG facility in northeast PA that would feed it.
Read More “DRBC, New Fortress Crush Antis’ Arguments Against LNG Export Dock”
From time to time we check in on Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Does Epsilon actually do any of its own drilling? No. They partner with (give money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other companies do the actual drilling. Epsilon, according to its website, owns ~4,000 net acres in the PA Marcellus. Epsilon issued its first-quarter 2020 update yesterday.
Read More “Epsilon Energy 1Q: Still Partners with Chesapeake in NEPA”
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT, in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (now Olympus Energy) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT has finally struck out, permanently, at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Read More “Penn Twp Frack Ban Case Strikes Out at PA Supreme Court”
ECA Marcellus Trust I announced yesterday that there will be no distribution (dividend) paid for investors for first-quarter 2020 because expenses exceeded net revenues. Who is ECA Marcellus?
Read More “ECA Marcellus Trust I Cancels 1Q20 Distribution to Investors”
Have Marcellus/Utica drillers learned their lesson about growth at any cost? It seems the answer to that is, YES! The price of natural gas has been low for a long time due to overproduction. You’ve often read here on MDN that gas prices will be “lower for longer.” And yet with the coronavirus pandemic and the crash in oil prices, the price of natgas has been (mostly) inching up–getting close to $2/Mcf (although it was down again yesterday, to $1.62/Mcf). Estimates for gas prices next year are trending to the $2.50-$2.75 range. Everyone is watching–will M-U and other gas-focused drillers restart big spending and more drilling?
Read More “M-U Drillers Promise Spending Restraint Even with Rosier Outlook”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Methane leaks much worse than previously thought, study says; Range Resources shareholders OK compensation plan at annual meeting; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Bakken gas supplies plunge as oil production pulls back; NATIONAL: EIA expects energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to fall 11% this year; Republicans urge Trump to bar banks from shunning fossil fuel loans, investments; FERC picks first-ever chief of LNG division.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, May 14, 2020”
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) continues its program of buying up mostly older conventional oil and gas wells in Appalachia. In April DGO cut a deal to buy 6,500 conventional wells spread across West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, along with a 4,700-mile gathering pipeline system located in WV, for $110 million (see Diversified Deal to Pick Up Another 6,500 O&G Wells in WV, KY, TN). DGO has done it again, this time buying 900 wells from EQT located mostly in West Virginia. The deal also includes 67 shale wells in Pennsylvania.
Read More “Diversified Buys 900 EQT Wells (67 Shale Wells) for $125M”
It’s been three years since we’ve written about Texas Gas Transmission’s (TGT) Northern Access Supply Project. TGT is a big pipeline network owned and operated by Boardwalk Pipeline Partners. Originally built from the Louisiana Gulf Coast to the upper Midwest, the purpose of the pipeline system was to supply Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio with natural gas. Then the Marcellus/Utica Shale happened and TGT needed to change strategies.
Read More “Texas Gas Gives Up on Portion of M-U to Gulf Coast Pipe Project”
A relatively short pipeline project to flow water from the Susquehanna River in Tunkhannock (Wyoming County), PA to a water impoundment about seven miles away, began construction in February 2019 (see Water Pipeline for NEPA Marcellus Drillers Begins Construction). The project was supposed to be built within six months. It never happened. On again off again…is now on again.
Read More “Water Pipeline for NEPA Shale Drillers Restarts Construction”
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent the construction of a natural gas well (see Wayne County, PA Landowner Sues DRBC Over Fracking Ban). The case bounced around various courts and is now back in federal court in Scranton, PA where a judge will decide whether shale drilling is a “project” under regulations that govern the DRBC. Anti-fossil fuel haters at the National Resources Defense Council (aka Rockefeller family) are terrified the judge is about to rule against the DRBC (and them), and so has filed a friend of the court brief to try and snow (or intimidate) the judge.
Read More “Big Green Scared – NRDC Tries to Horn in on DRBC Fracking Lawsuit”
A tiny 2.1-mile pipeline looping project in western Massachusetts has been fought tooth and nail for over two years by anti-fossil fuel zealots. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project, subsequently refused to “rehear” its decision, and now Big Green groups (with loads of money) have colluded to sue FERC in federal court in an attempt to emasculate the agency because it won’t consider mythical man-made global warming when approving projects like this one.
Read More “Antis Sue to Block 2.1 Miles of Local Gas Pipe in Massachusetts”
For the past two weeks, MDN has brought you a new shale drilling permits issued report on Wednesdays. We fully intended to do so again today–except the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) website is down with no estimates for when it will be back online. We have PA and WV numbers, but are holding the report back until we can get OH numbers too. In lieu of the report today, we have an article we spotted comparing PA’s permits issued in April of this year compared to last year–noting new permits have decreased by 46% year over year.
Read More “Pennsylvania New Shale Permits Down 46% Y/Y in April”
It becomes more obvious every day that the rank and file (even the leaders) of trade unions are breaking with their Democrat Party bosses over issues like insane taxes on natural gas. The divide is particularly acute in blue states like Pennsylvania, which voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and likely will again in 2020 because the Dems keep shooting themselves in the head with stupid taxes and regulations that kill jobs. The PA AFL-CIO issued a statement yesterday thanking the PA Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee, part of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, for listening to the union’s concerns about Gov. Wolf’s proposed carbon tax at a recent hearing.
Read More “PA Trade Unions Break with Democrats Over Power Plant Carbon Tax”