Shale Gas News – April 3, 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 infrastructure, American LNG, Wayne National Forest 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. In this week’s Shale Directories meet a member segment we were joined by John DeMartino, Vice President at E.J. Breneman, L.L.C.

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the April 3rd show (click above), we covered the following new natural gas territory (see news excerpts below):

• Biden’s $2T infrastructure plan would overhaul grid. President Biden will unveil a $2 trillion, eight-year plan today that features efforts to speed up a transition to clean energy, including $100 billion to upgrade the U.S. electric grid and to give the Energy Department more clout in disputes over siting power lines. The sweeping “American Jobs Plan,” which Biden will begin pitching at an event this afternoon in energy-rich Pennsylvania, also calls for huge investments in carbon capture projects, $174 billion in electric vehicles, and the repeal of subsidies and foreign tax credits for the fossil fuel industry.
• American LNG Can Be Biden’s ‘Sharpest Diplomatic Tool’ – American natural gas is the sharpest diplomatic tool the Biden administration can wield in energy-related foreign policy and international trade negotiations. As newly confirmed energy secretary Jennifer Granholm has made clear, liquefied natural gas exports “play an important role” in helping countries grow their economies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Popularity of oil pipelines up since 2019 — poll. An oil industry poll indicates that the popularity of oil pipelines has edged upward in the last two years, even as controversies about them have remained in the headlines.
• Oil drilling recovering from pandemic, but not driven by shale. Drilling activity is recovering from last year’s oil bust, buoyed by growing demand for crude and natural gas with the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine promising an end to the global pandemic. The number of wells drilled worldwide is expected to grow by 12 percent to 54,000 wells this year, compared with 46,000 wells last year. While drilling will fall short of the 73,000 wells drilled in 2019, it’s a “healthy recovery,” according to Rystad, a Norwegian energy research firm.
• Oil market buffers can withstand looming supply risks: IEA’s Bosoni. The oil market is well positioned to avoid a supply crunch in the coming years despite a growing disconnect between upstream investment and oil demand growth, the head of the International Energy Agency’s oil market division Toril Bosoni told S&P Global Platts in an interview. The Paris-based agency in its March oil report played down suggestions of a commodity supercycle and a looming supply deficit in the near term, but Bosoni said it it was even unlikely later this decade thanks to OPEC+ being able to maintain dwindling but still significant oil market shock absorbers.
• Fracking ban for Delaware River basin heads to a showdown in federal court. More than a decade after environmentalists and landowners first formed battle lines over natural gas drilling in the Delaware River basin, the prolonged fight over fracking is finally heading to a resolution in a Scranton courtroom. U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani last month set an October trial date to hear a challenge to the drilling moratorium imposed in 2010 by the Delaware River Basin Commission, the interstate agency that manages water use in the vast Delaware watershed. A Wayne County landowner group alleges that the DRBC doesn’t have jurisdiction over shale gas drilling.
• Federal Judge Blocks Permits to Drill in OH’s Wayne Natl Forest. On Monday a federal judge with the U.S. District Court in Ohio put a temporary hold on issuing any more oil and gas drilling permits to drill on previously issued leases in the (mostly privately-owned) Wayne National Forest (WNF) in Ohio. The judge cited the Biden administration’s hold on all federal leasing/drilling permits until it completes its political analysis first. The only good news is that the judge refused to toss WNF leases entirely, as was requested by rabid anti-fossil fuel nutters. The antis are still thrilled with the ruling. The judge’s action in blocking new permits directly affects Eclipse Resources (now Southwestern Energy) which owns shale gas leases they can now not drill on.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation