Shale Gas News – October 19, 2019

Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

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The Shale Gas News, heard every Saturday at 10 AM on 94.3 FM, 1510 AM and Sundays on YesFM, talked about the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Gulf of Mexico, Russia and much more last week.

The Shale Gas News has grown again; welcome Gem 104 as our FOURTH station! Gem 104 helps to solidify the Shale Gas News coverage in an important Marcellus region, PA’s northern tier. The Shale Gas News is now broadcasting in Bradford, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga and Wayne Counties, as well as in greater central PA. The Shale Gas News is aired on Saturday or Sunday depending on the station.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week we played a clip from the recent “Think About Energy” Briefing with Congressman Fred Keller.

In this week’s Shale Directories meet a member segment we were joined by Richard Lantz, Vice President at The Beaver Excavating Company.

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the October 19th show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• Supreme Court deals blow to ‘quick take’ challenges. The Supreme Court’s decision to reject a challenge to the Mountain Valley natural gas project could signal the end of the road for disputes over an unusual quirk in pipeline eminent domain procedures — at least for now. Legal experts see few immediate avenues for landowners to continue to fight the use of “quick take,” a process that allows pipeline companies to begin building on private land before paying for access. The issue was central to Givens v. Mountain Valley Pipeline, a landowner lawsuit over the 300-mile pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia that the high court tossed yesterday (Greenwire, Oct. 7).
• The US shale oil boom has made a Middle East war less likely. It looks like the decade-old U.S. shale oil boom may keep us out of war. Recall that when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, then-President George H.W. Bush led a coalition of countries against Iraq — though it was mostly a U.S. effort. The aerial attack began in January 1991, and Kuwait was quickly liberated. Since Kuwait had been anti-Israel and not a strong U.S. ally, accusations immediately emerged that oil was the real motive behind the war.
• Oil and gas association president optimistic about activity in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana’s oil and gas industry is poised for a modest recovery, although there are still factors negatively affecting industry growth in South Louisiana, said Gifford Briggs, the head of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. Briggs gave his “state of the industry” presentation to business and economic development leaders at the Petroleum Club on Monday. Briggs highlighted a rise in lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico as a predictor for a modest recovery for the area’s oil and gas industry.
• Norway Oil Coffers About to Get Giant Boost From the North Sea. Equinor ASA has started its Johan Sverdrup oil field, a rare mega-project in the North Sea that’s been a boon for Norway’s offshore industry and now promises to deliver a huge production boost for the country. Discovered in 2010 in an area that had been disregarded by most explorers, the site started production on Saturday and is set to reach 440,000 barrels a day by next summer. That represents a 33% addition to Norway’s production in the first half of this year, a spike in output not seen since the 1980s.
• Russia should reform oil taxes to sustain output: Energy Minister Novak. Russia’s energy minister has told Reuters his country should reform oil taxation to bring into production some 10 billion tonnes of currently uneconomic reserves and boost producers’ margins to compete better with rivals such as U.S. shale firms. Alexander Novak said oil production in Russia, which has enough reserves of crude to sustain current production for over 50 years, could decline if the tax system remained unchanged.
• The next secretary? DOE’s No. 2 behind the scenes. Reports that Energy Secretary Rick Perry is soon leaving the agency have turned eyes toward his No. 2 official, Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette, who has publicly espoused the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda and is widely viewed as Perry’s likely successor.
• Elizabeth Warren’s Fracking Proposal Has Shale Investors Weighing E&P Risk. The prospect of Elizabeth Warren becoming the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, or the 46th president of the U.S., has energy investors worrying about risks to hydraulic fracturing. “What happens if Elizabeth Warren becomes president and bans fraccing?” was the most common question Sanford C. Bernstein received during recent marketing, analysts led by Bob Brackett said in note Tuesday. They don’t currently have a good answer.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation