Shale Gas News – April 10, 2021

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, 1600 AM, 104.1 FM and Sundays on YesFM, talked about FRAC Act, solar farms, Shell Cracker and much more last week.

The Shale Gas News has grown again to the Williamsport area on stations WEJS 1600 AM & 104.1 FM. 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 and now the Williamsport area. The Shale Gas News is aired on Saturday or Sunday depending on the station.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender, Matt Henderson and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week we played a podcast from Ben Lawrence, Chief Business Officer at KCF Technologies about their services and companies they work with. Today they profiled Buddy Petersen, Chief Operating Officer at FTS International.

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the April 10th show (click above), we covered the following new natural gas territory (see news excerpts below):

• U.S. oilfield service companies added 23,000 jobs in March. The American oilfield services and equipment sector employment rose by an estimated 23,015 jobs in March, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and analysis by the Energy Workforce & Technology Council.  Routine BLS revisions reduced lost jobs in February to 7,697 from the 10,048 it reported one month ago. According to the revised data, the sector cut 1,322 positions in January 2021.
• 2021: A Year of Offshore Energy Potential. After what has seemed like the longest year ever, the offshore energy sector is emerging from a position of strength, from the standpoint of both economics and sustainability. Between the lockdowns implemented to reduce COVID-19, which reduced energy demand, to the oil price war between state-backed producers, 2020 was an unprecedented storm that hit the American offshore energy market.
• Mixed Reaction from Natural Gas, Oil Industry as $2T Biden Infrastructure Plan Targets Decarbonization, Taxes. President Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan has generated mixed reactions from the fossil energy industry, as Biden is asking Congress to raise corporate taxes in order to accelerate the clean energy transition. The jobs and infrastructure package underscores the “whole-of-government” approach Biden is taking toward climate and energy policy, a shift from previous administrations.
• Democrats Intro 5 Bills, Including FRAC Act, to Ban Fracking Everywhere. Yet another attack on the oil and gas industry by the officially out-of-control Democrats in Congress. In years gone by a few fringe leftists from the Democrat Party have introduced several bills, including the FRAC Act, aimed at permanently ripping the U.S. Constitution apart by overriding states’ rights to regulate and control oil and gas drilling within their own borders. Using the faux excuse of man-made global warming, the FRAC Act overrides the individual states and grants broad/sweeping power to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate fracking. The Dems are at it again, reintroducing the FRAC Act and four other bills (called the “Frack Pack”), all aimed at restricting/eliminating fracking nationwide.
• How COVID Affected Cracker Plant Construction, How Shell Responded. We’ve written plenty about Shell’s mighty ethane cracker plant project happening in Beaver County, PA. It is one of the biggest construction projects currently underway in the entire country. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit one year ago, the construction site closed down, going from 8,000 workers to a skeleton crew of 300. The way Shell handled the closure, and handled the subsequent reopening, is worth understanding and studying.
• Gov. Wolf Sacrifices 2,000 Acres of PA Farmland for Ugly Solar Farms. If you live in Pennsylvania, actually in just about any state, you couldn’t miss the big splash made yesterday when PA’s worst governor in the past 50 years, Tom Wolf, announced a massive taxpayer-funded initiative to build seven new solar energy facilities in six PA counties that will strip away some 2,000 acres of valuable PA farmland to produce enough electricity to power just half of PA’s state government. (Perhaps we can call it the half-baked solar project?) Leftists in mainstream media are falling over themselves to praise Wolf. We (as usual) have a different take.
• VNG Cancels Pipeline Expansion Plan for NE Virginia. All the wheels have officially come off the cart for a proposed $346 million pipeline project in northeastern Virginia called the Header Improvement Project. Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) filed a plan last December to build the Header Improvement Project, 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor) connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the northeast Virginia region. The plan has officially been filed in the trash can.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation