Industrywide Issues

MVP Flows Full 2 Bcf/d for First Time Since Starting Last June

On June 14, 2024, the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline had, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules (see Confirmed: M-U Gas Now Flowing Through Mountain Valley Pipeline). The effect of the molecules flowing through MVP…

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Are U-Turn Wells the Future of Drilling in the Marcellus/Utica?

We never cease to marvel at the genius of the oil and gas industry and those who seek to find better ways to drill. According to an Oil and Gas Investor article examining major shale play trends, drillers across the Lower 48 are drilling U-shaped double-long laterals, finding lower-cost new-well inventory in the acreage they…

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ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub Open House Brings Out Anti-Fossil Fuelers

Last August, MDN told you that the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) officially received its first $30 million from the Bidenistas (see EQT & Others Enter “Phase 1” of Hydrogen Hub; DOE Cuts $30M Check). ARCH2 is getting $925 million from a $7 billion pot. ARCH2, one of seven projects to win approval, was…

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New Bill in Congress Would Block Presidents from Banning Fracking

Last Friday, Republican Congressman August Pfluger (from Texas) introduced a new bill that will prevent any future president from banning fracking nationally without the consent of Congress. Pfluger’s “Protecting American Energy Production Act” would explicitly require an act of Congress to impose a fracking moratorium and prevent the president from doing so directly. We must…

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World’s Largest Investment Firm, BlackRock, Dumps Net-Zero Club

Elections certainly do “have consequences,” as Lord Obama once famously said. Less than two months after Donald J. Trump won the election and Republicans won both houses of Congress, the six largest banks in the U.S. all withdrew their membership in the United Nations Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), with the largest bank, JPMorgan Chase,…

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What May Be Ahead for M-U in 2025 & 2026: More Pipes, More M&A

The end of the year and the beginning of a new year are times when many publications reflect on what was and what may be. A recent article by Hart Energy’s Oil and Gas Investor magazine tackled the topic of what may lie ahead for the Marcellus/Utica region over the next couple of years. The…

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5 PUCO Commissioners to Decide the Future of Data Centers in Ohio

Last fall, MDN began tracking the issue of who, ultimately, should pay to build out new electricity sources for data centers (and AI) that increasingly use huge amounts of power (see Big Tech and Big Utility Tangle in Ohio re Data Center Electricity and Big Tech Not Happy with OH Utility Counterproposal re Data Centers)….

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Pittsylvania (VA) County Planning Bd. Votes to Deny Data Center Plan

The Pittsylvania County Planning Commission voted on Jan. 7 to recommend against granting Virginia-based Balico permission to proceed with a $8.85 billion project to build a data center complex. Last October, Balico applied to rezone more than 2,200 acres for a proposed campus that would include its own massive on-site gas-fired power plant complex using…

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FERC Approves Plan for Shell to Buy R.I. Gas-Fired Power Plant

Last October, Shell signed an agreement to buy 100% of RISEC Holdings’ 609-megawatt (MW) two-unit combined-cycle gas turbine power plant located near Providence, Rhode Island (see Shell Buys Gas-Fired Power Plant Near Providence, Rhode Island). Shell wants to buy the plant out of self-interest. The company supplies natural gas to the plant. Shell would be…

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Coterra Buys More Permian Acreage, Automates Fracking with AI

We have two stories about Coterra Energy to share. Coterra was formed in 2021 by the merger of the Marcellus-focused Cabot Oil & Gas and the Permian/Anadarko-focused Cimarex Energy. Unfortunately (for the M-U), the merged company has chosen to concentrate new drilling outside of the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus until the price of natgas improves (see…

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Largest Bank in U.S. Drops Out of UN’s Net Zero Banking Alliance

Last week, MDN brought you the great news that five of the six largest banks in the United States have now canceled their memberships in the awful Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of woke banks under the umbrella of the equally terrible United Nations (see U.S. Big Banks Drop Out of the UN’s…

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DC Circuit Sides with FERC Approval of 24-Mile Gas Pipe in Indiana

In June 2021, MDN told you about CenterPoint Energy, a power generator looking to shutter portions of its coal-fired generation fleet and build two natural gas combustion turbines in Indiana (see Will New 460 MW Gas-Fired Plant in Indiana Get Approved?). The two units would provide a combined 460 megawatts (MW) of electricity as a…

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“Green” New England Burns NatGas, Coal, Oil to Keep the Lights On

Liberal New England, one of the bluest (Democrat) areas of the country, continues to do the opposite of what they preach. For years, New England states like Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut have blocked new natural gas pipelines that would carry Marcellus molecules from a few hundred miles away into their states, claiming they seek to…

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Canceled Conn. Gas-Fired Plant Blocking Battery Plant at Same Site

Here’s a story in the karma-is-a-boomerang department… In July 2019, the Connecticut Siting Council approved the Killingly Energy Center gas-fired power plant project after initially rejecting it (see Connecticut Approves New Natgas-Fired Electric Plant in Killingly). The Killingly project would have built a 650-megawatt gas-fired plant in eastern Connecticut. The Siting Council recognized that some…

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