MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Nov 7, 2025 [FREE ACCESS]
NATIONAL: US LNG producers ink near record contract volumes, even as fees climb; USA shale operators defy $60 oil to keep increasing output; The Rockefeller-funded climate crusade on the road to nowhere; Energy Secretary Chris Wright has his way with the IEA; INTERNATIONAL: Oil falls as Saudi price cuts signal market gloom; Poland in talks to import more LNG from US to supply Ukraine, Slovakia; What does and doesn’t drive oil prices. Read More “MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Nov 7, 2025 [FREE ACCESS]”
Gulfport Energy is the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled). Gulfport released its third quarter update yesterday. The company is going full steam ahead in its natgas drilling in the Ohio Marcellus. Gulfport is aggressively expanding its future drilling potential. The company nearly tripled its Marcellus inventory, adding roughly 125 gross locations. Concurrently, Gulfport successfully finished two Utica U-development test wells, a move that proves drilling feasibility and unlocks an additional 20 gross Utica dry gas locations. 
In January 2023, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
Following some intense conversations between President Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year, she caved (according to the White House) and agreed to allow two long-stalled pipeline projects—the Constitution and NESE—to get built in NY in return for Trump allowing her to continue to sink $5 billion into an offshore wind project (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee (the House has a one-Democrat majority) held a hearing on a proposal by Penn America to locate a 1 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet a day) LNG natural gas export facility in the City of Chester, Delaware County. The hearing was hosted by Rep. Carol Kazeeme (D-Delaware) and was exclusively attended by Democrats who were there to bash the project. There was no “How can we make this better?” There was only, “No way, no how, go to hell.” That’s the new Democrat Party and its political “leaders.” 
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a carbon tax scheme. The RGGI tax is supposed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by gas- and coal-fired power generators. The intent is to force fossil fuel power generators out of business. That’s what RGGI is designed to do, all in the name of reducing CO2. However, the only thing it accomplishes is to drive electricity prices higher. A new study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (full copy below) finds that every state that belongs to RGGI has higher electricity prices than Pennsylvania. And each of those RGGI states saw their prices jump more over the past five years than the national average. 
The U.S. oil and natural gas sector operates on a drilling treadmill. As production from existing wells rapidly declines—a trend exacerbated by the faster decline rates of prolific horizontal (shale) wells—operators are forced to drill new wells to maintain current output. Since 2010, however, new hydrocarbon production in the Lower 48 states has been robust enough to not only offset these significant losses but also increase overall production levels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration published a post yesterday explaining the shale drilling “treadmill” we find ourselves on. 
In October 2021, one of the Marcellus’ premier drillers, Cabot Oil & Gas, merged with/into Cimarex Energy, an oil driller focused on the Permian and Anadarko basins (see 
Coterra Energy, formed by the merger of Cabot Oil & Gas (drills for natural gas in the Marcellus) and Cimarex Energy (drills for oil in the Permian and Anadarko basins), issued its third quarter 2025 update yesterday. What stood out to us is just how little new drilling the company did in the Marcellus during 3Q. Coterra spud (began to drill) 15 new Marcellus wells during 3Q, while it spud 68 wells in the Permian and 11 in the Anadarko basins. The company brought online to sales (called turned-in-line, or TIL) 4 wells in the Marcellus, 64 TILs in the Permian, and 8 TILs in the Anadarko. That about says it all. 
In June, EQT Corp. agreed to pay $167.5 million to investors who claimed the company overstated the benefits of its $6.7 billion merger with Rice Energy (see 
In February 2024, members of the South Carolina Public Service Commission approved a proposed project to build a 1,020-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant in the state’s Lowcountry, in Colleton County (see 
Hell has officially frozen over. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is seeking to revise the state’s 2019 Climate Act, recognizing that its mandates for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 are financially unsustainable for New Yorkers and have become a major election issue due to rapidly rising energy costs. This move follows a court ruling compelling the state to either change the law or issue the “infeasible” regulations by a February 2026 deadline, a task the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had previously avoided due to the “extraordinary and damaging costs” it would impose. The law’s implementation is further complicated by state electric power “plans” that rely on non-existent technology, highlighting the impossibility of meeting the 2030 target and setting the stage for a significant political battle as the law finally hits an economic wall. But that’s not all…