Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Feb 15, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Williamsport explorers beat Ithaca winers, once again; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: India’s Petronet lines up Driftwood LNG equity investment; Waha price collapse signals worsening gas supply glut in the Permian; NATIONAL: Dominion Energy adds two new directors; Bill Barr steps down; Natural gas processing capacity in the lower 48 states; US rig count falls 15 on week to 12-month low; Upstart pitches plan for the cheapest U.S. natural gas exports; EIA adds new play production data to shale gas and tight oil reports; Can U.S. gas production keep up with demand?; Increased use of natural gas exposes U.S. to cyber attacks, FERC chairman says.
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Here’s something we didn’t know: In West Virginia there’s a regulation on the books, put there decades ago (pre-shale), that stipulates wells targeting “deep” formations including the Utica Shale must be at least 3,000 feet apart.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s foolish policies have finally come home to roost. You can only overtax and overregulate for so long before a state’s economy comes tumbling down–and that’s just what’s happening to poor Andy, who went hat-in-hand to the White House on Tuesday to beg and plead with The Donald to tweak the newly implemented tax federal tax cut.
Earlier this month Toby and Derek Rice, formerly executives with Rice Energy (before it sold to EQT), launched a proxy war to nominate board members who will appoint Toby CEO of EQT (see 
Utility company Consolidated Edison recently announced it will slap a moratorium on hooking up new customers for natural gas in Westchester County (NYC suburb) beginning March 15 (see 
Last week ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum announced a final investment decision (FID) to build Golden Pass LNG terminal, on the Texas side of the Sabine-Neches Waterway. That’s a stone’s throw from Cheneire Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal on the Louisiana side of the waterway. Marcellus/Utica gas flows to the Cheniere facility. Will it also flow to Exxon’s when it’s built?
It’s no secret that getting a gas pipeline project of any kind approved in New York State is an uphill battle because our governor, Andrew Cuomo, blocks all new pipelines in a bid to keep his left wing supporters happy. An important project from Williams, the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) which would beef up capacity along the Transco pipeline system going into New York City, is about to get two hearings with the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation.
Yesterday MDN began our lead story about a big fine for Antero Resources by saying, “This has to be a record-high amount for a fine plus remediation work, at least in the Marcellus/Utica.” We humbly admit we were wrong. In checking our records, we found that in a similar case from 2014, Trans Energy paid even more, quite a bit more. We researched what this whole business is about, why Antero and others were fined, interviewing a top Antero official, and we now have a far better understanding of what happened and why.
In 2013 some 10,000 West Virginia landowners/rights owners filed a class action lawsuit against EQT over their practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks. The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November, but at the last minute, it didn’t. Word leaked that EQT had settled out of court (see 
It’s that time of year for energy companies to issue updates on just how much oil and gas they own in the ground, recoverable at current prices. Both CNX Resources and Range Resources, two major Marcellus/Utica producers, recently issued statements outlining their “proved reserves.” CNX has 7.9 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe) in proved reserves as of Dec. 31, 2018. Range Resources has 18.1 Tcfe in proved reserves.
A partisan left-wing group calling itself the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy along with another partisan left-wing group called the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) released a report last week that claims WV’s shale industry has “fallen short” in delivering on economic promises, and the way to fix it is to boost the severance tax from 5% to 10%! Yeah, they’re out of their collectivist minds.
Although Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) is facing serious delays and cost overruns mainly due to lawsuits brought by Big Green groups, the company is still committed to building the pipeline (see 
