Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, Jan 30, 2020
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Fracking ban is unwarranted and would be costly to Virginia residents; NATIONAL: Oil and gas industry applauds Trump signing of USMCA into law; ‘Gasmageddon’ is here, with natgas prices averaging $1.99 in 2020, say analysts; Natural gas prices are poised to move above $3 as production declines; UPS jumps into the future with plan to buy 10,000 electric vans; INTERNATIONAL: No, banks don’t hold the key to climate change; Russia, China and the U.S. are forever changing the global gas market.
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Little Johnny one-note, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, is once again singing a single note–and that note is a call to destroy what’s left of the PA Marcellus industry with a severance tax. He sang his one-note tune yesterday, doing his best Santa Claus routine. Wolf says he can give away $4.5 billion of “everything” PA residents desire most in life–if only the evil Republican leadership in both chambers of the legislature would allow a vote on his plan.
A number of Marcellus/Utica drillers recycle most, if not all of, the flowback and produced water from the wells they drill. Produced water (from the depths) continues to pour out of wells for years after they’re drilled. Produced water is super salty, filled with minerals. If a driller can’t reuse the water, they must dispose of it–typically via an injection well (in Ohio). Range Resources not only recycles all of its own produced water but also accepts and reuses produced water from 14 other drillers!
Two weeks ago MDN told you about two bills important to the oil and gas industry in West Virginia that are quickly advancing through the state’s current 60-day legislative session (see 
Last December the husband and wife team of Mark and Melinda Clatterbuck got themselves arrested for illegal trespass and disorderly conduct at a Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline site near Philadelphia (see 
Just a few days ago MDN brought you the sad news that the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery, now closed, will stay closed permanently following a deal to sell the site to a warehouse developer from Chicago (see 
What is it about Yale University researchers and their obsession with sexually transmitted diseases? It seems like an unhealthy obsession to us. The same Yale brain trust that brought us a sham “study” in 2018 that said fracking causes STDs in Ohio (see 
West Rockhill Township in Bucks County, PA (near Philadelphia) waged a legal battle to prevent a natural gas compressor station from being built as part of the Adelphia Gateway project, a plan to convert an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook. West Rockhill appealed a decision by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) authorizing construction of the compressor station to a special court called the Environmental Hearing Board (EHB). Last October the EHB ruled against West Rockhill (see 
We’ve been warning you, for the past two years, that FERC Commissioner Richard “Dick” Glick is nothing more than a Chuck Schumer political hack. He consistently votes against ALL new natural gas pipeline projects, claiming FERC doesn’t pander enough to global warmists in deciding whether a project should get built. Now Glick is siding with radicalized “environmentalists” (socialists) who want to deny FERC the right to use one of their most important tools–called a “tolling order”–a tool FERC uses to counter a myriad of lawsuits Big Green now files against every…single…new…pipeline project. To say Glick has betrayed his office is an understatement.
Apparently New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, far-left Democrat, is trying to grab the far-left spotlight away from his neighbor, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Murphy unveiled an insane energy plan for NJ yesterday, a plan that calls for eliminating the use of natural gas in the state by 2050. That’s 30 years away. Even though such a reduction will decimate the state economically and force millions of its residents to suffer from lack of heat and electricity. Natural gas is used to produce produces 50% of NJ’s electricity heat the homes and businesses of 75% of NJ residents! This is a stark raving mad plan. All in the name of solving a problem that doesn’t even exist–man-made global warming.
It’s not all doom and gloom in the Marcellus/Utica sector. Although there have been plenty of layoffs and announcements of budget cuts and less drilling, at least one company in our space is expanding–sensing new opportunity. That company, we are proud to say, is MDN’s premier sponsor for 2020: 
The regional transmission organization (RTO) that oversees the electric grid in New England states is called ISO New England. The organization has just published new data for 2019 which contains some interesting statistics. For example, in 2019, some 48.5% of all the electricity generated in the region (the #1 source) was generated by (yep)…natural gas. That number has been pretty consistent over the past five years. The #2 source of electric generation was nuclear, at 30%. The #3 source was hydro, which produced 9% of New England’s electricity. Wait, what about wind and solar? You know, the blessed renewables that will SAVE THE PLANET. How much did they produce last year?
Natural gas is one of those commodities that economists consider as close to a “pure” commodity as one can get. Meaning the classic supply and demand curve rules. When you get more supply than you have in demand, the price goes down–along a predictable curve. In the natural gas world, supply signals come from a couple of different numbers. One is overall production. Another is storage–how much natural gas is sitting, unused, in underground storage, put there during summer “injection season” so it can be used during the winter “withdrawal season.” The bad news (for prices) is that with relatively mild temperatures this winter, we are at near-record high storage levels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).