TGP’s Mississippi Crossing Pipe Project Working on Approvals
Last December, Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary announced a final investment decision (FID) last December to build the Mississippi Crossing Project (MSX) Project after securing long-term, binding transportation agreements with customers for all the capacity (see TGP Announces FID on New 206-Mile Mississippi Crossing Pipe Project). The $1.7 billion project involves the construction of nearly 206 miles of 42-inch and 36-inch pipeline and two new compressor stations aimed at flowing 2.1 Bcf/d of natural gas (upgraded from an initial 1.5 Bcf/d). MSX will move more Marcellus/Utica gas into Mississippi and Alabama. The project is currently “winding its way through the approval process.” Read More “TGP’s Mississippi Crossing Pipe Project Working on Approvals”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) last week. The STEO is the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will head in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA dropped its estimates for the Henry Hub spot price for 2025. The agency expects the HH price to average $3.70 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2025, $0.30 lower than last month’s forecast. EIA also dropped its 2026 forecast, now believing the gas price will average $4.40/MMBtu, down a whopping $0.50 (half a buck!) from last month’s $4.90. You can see why we refer to the dartboard EIA uses each month when creating these forecasts. 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pittsburgh summit to showcase intersection of energy, AI and policy; How Pennsylvania ranked on a national best-states-for-business list; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Renewable energy project cancellations spike in Texas; Chevron planning $5 billion blue hydrogen/ammonia plant in Texas; Kathy Hochul’s only slowing down the suffering from her green-energy lunacy; NATIONAL: U.S. hydrocarbon production supported by export growth in long-term projections; Trump’s energy chief bats away alarms from activists, news media about ending green power subsidies; Dems couldn’t save Biden’s energy programs — so they’ll try to make them a weapon against the GOP; INTERNATIONAL: Oil rises on looming US Russia sanction threats; Climate change is the No. 1 problem of no nation; Burn more oil and coal, save lives and never ever apologize; Who is the world’s biggest energy supplier?; Netherlands rations electricity to ease power grid stresses. 
For the week of June 30 – July 6, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica decreased from the previous week, likely due to the July 4th holiday. There were 21 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, down six from 27 issued two weeks ago. The Keystone State (PA) issued 13 new permits. EQT and its recently acquired Olympus Energy received a combined five permits scattered across three counties: Allegheny, Greene, and Washington. Snyder Brothers received four permits in Armstrong County. BKV scored three permits in Wyoming County. Range Resources received a single permit in Washington County. 
Well, you knew this was coming. Radicalized green groups are gearing up to challenge two recently resurrected Williams pipeline projects: The Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile, 660 MMcf/d greenfield (brand new) pipeline from the gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Susquehanna County) into and through New York to Schoharie County; and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project, designed to increase Transco pipeline capacity and flows of Marcellus gas heading into New York City and other northeastern markets. 
We still marvel, to this day, at how Tallgrass Energy Partners turned what looked like a financial disaster into an economic bonanza. Tallgrass built the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline, which stretches from Colorado and Wyoming to Ohio, just in time for the shale revolution to take hold. Whoops! Talk about bad timing! A significant portion of REX, its Zone 3 pipeline from Missouri to Ohio, was in danger of drying up in 2012 due to the increase in Marcellus/Utica gas production (see 
Yesterday, MDN informed you that CNX Resources is still considering (but not yet 100% committed) to a plan to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) using coalbed methane (see 
Another day, another gas-fired power plant has been sold. It’s becoming a routine thing. Yesterday, ArcLight Capital Partners announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire 100% of the economic interests in Middletown Energy Center, a 484 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant located in Butler County, Ohio. We wrote about the original plan to build the Middletown plant back in 2014 (see 
MDN is a blog/news site primarily focused on the Marcellus/Utica shale and related issues. Sometimes, conventional (non-shale) drilling is a related issue. Today, we have an article that discusses the fact that new conventional drilling still happens in some places in Pennsylvania—in this case, in the City of Warren (Warren County). The president of Bull Run Resources LLC gave a presentation to and took questions from the Warren City Council yesterday. The information he discussed was interesting, as it compared and contrasted conventional drilling with shale drilling. Do you know the differences? And did you know that conventional wells are sometimes drilled at an angle? 
It took eight years and untold legal fees (on both sides) before a tiny 3.4-mile, 8-inch natural gas pipeline under the Potomac River was finally built and went online. In April 2017, MDN brought you the news that Columbia Pipeline (owned by TransCanada) had applied with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a pipeline under the Potomac to connect natural gas from Pennsylvania to the Mountaineer Gas system in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia (see 
The NYMEX “front month” futures contract for natural gas (August contract) slid lower yesterday for a second day in a row. The price dropped 12.6 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtus), or nearly 4%, to $3.214 yesterday. The price was down 19.8 cents (nearly 6%) over the past two days. According to one analyst (whom we trust), this “decisive breakdown” in natural gas puts the $3.10 support level at risk, opening the path to deeper downside targets, including $2.97 and $2.79. Yuck. 
In May of 2024, CNX Resources Corp., KeyState Energy, and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) announced they were working together on a $1.5 billion project that, if completed, would make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at PIT from coalbed methane gas (see 
In May, NRG Energy announced a deal to acquire LS Power’s portfolio of natural-gas power plants in a deal valued at roughly $12 billion, including debt, that will expand NRG’s footprint in Texas and along the East Coast (see 
No wonder Venture Global continues to love the model of signing up customers to buy its LNG via contract (which reassures investors so they give money to build a plant), then denies those contracted customers their shipments FOR YEARS under the pretense that they are still working the kinks out at the facility (called commissioning) while at the same time selling cargoes of LNG on the open/spot market. VG is receiving 2.6 times more money for spot market cargoes compared to cargoes shipped to contracted customers. The question we can’t answer is, why do any new customers sign up, given the company’s history? 
If you’ve read MDN for any length of time, you know that so-called renewable energy, wind and solar, are unreliable and really, really expensive. Most people believe renewables overcome those problems by being good for the environment. No so! Renewables are actually bad for the environment. We will explain…