Shale Gas News – January 9, 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 a colder winter, LNG exports, Mountain Valley Pipeline 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, as a guest, we had Tom Pyle of the American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research.

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the January 9th show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• An ‘All-of-Above’ energy plan is vital. Precisely what President-elect Joe Biden has in mind for an energy policy will not be known until after he takes office on Jan. 20. Unless we miss our guess, it will be only a matter of weeks after that before we are given good clues to his plans. Much of the relief outgoing President Donald Trump provided to the energy industry came in the form of executive orders and agency interpretations of their mandates. What one president’s administration gave in such forms can be taken away by its successor.
• Winter Is Colder This Year and That’s Good for Energy Prices. Freezing weather that’s gripped large parts of the northern hemisphere is delivering a winter blessing for oil, gas and coal prices as suppliers meet a surge in heating demand. Temperatures across much of Europe and Asia are well below normal and forecasters expect them to stay there for most of January.
• Are gas bans needed? Study shows electrification surge. Electrifying the country’s new buildings may be easier than many policymakers assume — although in some regions it could require subsidies reaching into the thousands of dollars per household, according to a new analysis.
• Can Renewables Become As Profitable As Oil And Gas? Here’s the question for oil industry investors. Can oil companies scale up clean energy enterprises to replace business lost from a decline in fossil fuel revenues? Some of the oil companies put up a brave front as they boast of their decarbonization plans. Others ignore the question. But at the end of the day— and this is the takeaway— we don’t think they will replace lost fossil related income by massively investing in windmills and solar power.
• DOE Continues Push, Extends Another Five LNG Export Licenses. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has extended another five long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) export licenses through 2050 in a last minute push by the Trump administration to execute on a policy change it implemented last year. “The Trump Administration and DOE have delivered on our commitment to ensure that U.S. LNG holds a prominent place in the global energy market,” said DOE Secretary Dan Brouillette.
• MVP Asks FERC to Use Alternative Method to Finish 77 Miles. Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d pipeline to move Marcellus/Utica gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia, has been hounded by radicals from Big Green groups including the Sierra Club for years. Big Green apparently has the clown judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in its back pocket because the clowns keep overturning legal and legitimately issued permits by government agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. MVP is now trying to get around the court’s obstructionism with an alternative method to install pipe.
• Southwestern, Equinor Win Post-Production Deduction Lawsuit in WV. Just coming to light (for us) is a decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Dec. 1, a ruling on post-production deductions by drillers when calculating gas royalties “at the wellhead” in West Virginia. The drillers, in this case, were Southwestern Energy and Equinor (formerly known as Statoil). The drillers won the right to claim certain post-production deductions.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation