MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Sep 23, 2025 [FREE ACCESS]
NATIONAL: Utility-scale batteries are more commonly used for price arbitrage; Net Zero emission ideologies is destructive to future generations; CO2 alarmism – science or superstition?; Trump calls on World Bank to reconsider oil and gas financing; How to end the “100% renewable” fraud; INTERNATIONAL: Crude stays in tight range amid risks; Trump renews pressure on EU to stop buying Russian oil; Exxon and Shell sue the Netherlands for closing Europe’s biggest gas field. Read More “MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Sep 23, 2025 [FREE ACCESS]”
We continue to eek out progress with the rig report. Last week, the national rig count added three rigs after adding two the prior week and one three weeks ago. We’ve added rigs for three weeks in a row! We ended last week with 542 active rigs across the country. The Utica Shale in Ohio added one rig two weeks ago and kept it last week. The combined count was 37 for two weeks running. PA operated 18 active rigs last week. OH operated 12 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 13 rigs targeted the Utica last week. 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the September 20 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC approved and/or renewed 40 general water use permits in August for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Centre, Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. 
EQT Corporation CEO Toby Rice, along with two other speakers (one from Enbridge and one from investment firm Engine No. 1) spoke on a panel at last week’s Bloomberg event called “Barrel of Tomorrow in the Age of AI” held in Houston. Rice and the others had some interesting comments about the current high price of electric and heating bills in the U.S. and how to decrease them. Their recommended solution to lower energy costs for U.S. residents is to build more natural gas pipelines. Rice also provided insight into the breakeven price that “marginal” producers need to break even and generate returns. 
For years, Big Oil companies based in other countries have been in love with LNG trading, including BP (UK), Shell (UK), Total (France), and Eni (Italy). In fact, in February 2016, Shell completed a $69.7 billion buyout and merger with BG, the largest such oil and gas deal since Exxon bought Mobil in 1999, because of LNG (see 
For the week of September 8 – 14, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica increased from the previous week. There were 26 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, more than doubling the 11 issued two weeks ago. For the second week in a row, Pennsylvania’s permit take was pathetic. PA issued just two new permits last week, after issuing three two weeks ago. Expand Energy received one permit in Bradford County, and Coterra Energy received the other permit in Susquehanna County (both counties in northeastern PA). 
In April, MDN told you of a proposal by Fundamental Data for the “Ridgeline Facility,” a large natural gas power plant and data center that will be built between Davis and Thomas, WV (see 
MDN has highlighted Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California company that manufactures small electric-generating plants that run on natural gas, several times in the past (