Shale Gas News – June 13, 2020

Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

…

…

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 Opec output, EPA water rule, Chesapeake Energy 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 replayed segments from the recent Think About Energy Briefing featuring Senator Gene Yaw and Senator John Yudichak discussing why energy matters in Pennsylvania.

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the June 13th show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• U.S. Shale Companies Are Turning the Oil Taps Back On.  As oil approaches $40 a barrel, companies are bringing wells back online, even as the market continues to recover from the demand drop caused by the coronavirus. American oil producers are reopening the spigots, complicating the crude market’s recovery. Scores of shale drilling companies turned off wells to reduce output when U.S. oil prices fell to negative territory in late April, after millions world-wide stopped driving and flying due to the new coronavirus, causing a steep drop in global demand.
• Civil rights leaders call for more diverse oil and gas industry. America’s leading civil rights leaders are calling on the oil and gas industry — dominated by white men — to hire more women and people of color. Why it matters: The effort, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson and National Urban League President Marc Morial, has been underway for weeks, though the topic has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
• Opec output curbs spur US shale to ramp up production. US oil production is set to shoot higher, as shale producers eyeing Opec’s move to support prices are poised to reactivate wells only a few weeks after shutting them.  Output could rise about 2m barrels a day, or 20 per cent, between now and the end of August as the bulk of the supply shut down during the recent price crash is brought back on stream, according to analysts.
• EPA Water Rule Won’t Speed Up New Oil, Gas Pipeline Projects. A new EPA water rule to curtail state vetoes won’t necessarily ease the path for new oil and gas interstate pipeline projects, energy analysts and lawyers say.  They say this is partly due to the sharp decline in oil and gas linked to the coronavirus pandemic. But the hurdles also come from a federal court’s suspension of the Clean Water Act Nationwide Permit 12, or NWP 12, that would allow developers to dredge and fill wetlands and stream crossings in order to lay pipelines. Without a nationwide permit, pipeline builders have no choice to seek the more time-consuming and expensive individual Clean Water Act permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that apply to each water crossing.
• ConocoPhillips CTO: The Shale Revolution Will Be Digitized. The oil and gas industry’s current downturn is only 3 months old. But the swiftness with which the global crude markets were brought down by the ongoing global pandemic is likely to leave an impression that will be felt for many years to come. One of the unknowns remains the full impact that this new cycle will have on technology development and the ambitious roadmaps that large operators, especially, have touted as the route to their future.
• EnerVest Auctioning 58K Utica Leased Acres in Ohio & Pennsylvania. EnergyNet is an online marketplace for buying and selling oil and gas working interests (operated and non-operated), overrides, royalties, mineral interests, leaseholds, and other contracts. From time to time we spot auctions on EnergyNet from Marcellus/Utica drillers. EnerVest Energy is currently auctioning a package of leases scattered across Ohio and Pennsylvania via the EnergyNet website. The EnerVest auction ends June 17. We have the details below.
• Chesapeake Stock Soars, Bankruptcy Rumors Soar Too. Chesapeake Energy’s stock went on a wild roller coaster ride yesterday. Over the past two days, the company’s stock rose by nearly 500% in value. Trading of the stock was halted 22 times yesterday for volatility. Chessy stock hit an all-time low of $8.41/share on May 14, the equivalent of a pre-reverse split price of just 4 cents per share–essentially worthless. The company’s shares rose over the past few days on the news that OPEC is extending its production cuts, boosting the price of oil. Right on cue, Bloomberg arrived early this morning with a story to throw cold water on Chessy’s rekindled stock–a story that the company has a plan to declare bankruptcy and turn current debtholders into the new owners, making all of those red hot shares of stock worthless. Bloomberg’s bankruptcy news sent the stock price down in pre-hours trading this morning.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation