Industrywide Issues

Ohio U. Scores $1.5 Million DOE Grant to Study Produced Water

We’ve discussed shale wastewater, sometimes called brine or “produced water,” many times over the years. When drilling an oil or gas well deep in the earth, the hole releases naturally occurring water from the depths (far, far below the surface water table) for years after the well is drilled. The water coming out has a…

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Henry Hub NatGas Spot Price Reached All-Time Lows in November

Earlier this week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. As part of our coverage, we highlighted the news that the EIA is predicting natural gas prices this winter and for all of 2025 will be roughly 40% higher than the Henry Hub price for gas in November (see Dec….

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Plaquemines LNG Coming Online, Will Hose Customers for 2 Years

According to a Reuters report, Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG export facility (Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana) could start to liquefy natural gas as early as today. It will mark the first new U.S. LNG export plant to come online in two years. The 20 million metric tons per annum (MTPA) export plant was set to draw over…

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OH Senate Passes Bill Extending Time Drillers Can Frack State Land

In something of a surprise (for us), the Ohio State Senate passed House Bill (HB) 308 yesterday, a bill that extends the standard lease terms for drillers who want to drill under (not on) state-owned land from three years to five years. The bill also extends the total amount of time fracking operations can last…

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$11B Power Line from Upstate NY Solar & Wind to NYC Canceled

For those unlucky enough to live in New York City and its sprawling suburbs, get ready for blackouts due to the lack of electricity. The state of New York and developers of the 175-mile Clean Path NY transmission line have “mutually agreed to terminate” contracts underpinning the project, which was planned to come online in…

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O&G Coalition Presses Speaker Johnson to Vote on Permitting Bill

In July, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia), the Democrat chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Senator John Barrasso (from Wyoming), the ranking Republican member of the same committee, drafted and released the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (see Barrasso, Manchin Release Bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Bill). The bill aims…

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New Jersey Readies Massive New Tax on Oil & Gas Facilities

You can’t fix stupid. You can only vote it out of office. From the outskirts of New York to the Delaware River shoreline across from Philadelphia, New Jersey is home to numerous oil and natural gas facilities. A New Jersey Senate committee is seriously discussing (planning) an insane new tax on those facilities as a…

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S&P 2025 Energy Outlook: Fossil Fuels Needed to Save the Day

Yesterday, the analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights, the leading independent provider of information, data, analysis, benchmark prices, and workflow solutions for the commodities and energy markets, released their 2025 energy outlook. S&P published the top 10 “key themes” from the report. Key theme #2 was this: “Total energy demand growth to outstrip clean energy…

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U.S. Supremes Signal Willingness to Curb NEPA Enviro Reviews

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could fundamentally change how the federal government conducts environmental reviews. We first told you about the case last week (see U.S. Supremes to Consider How Far is Too Far with Enviro Reviews). The case deals with a proposed railway that would connect…

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Timing & Future of Venture Global’s CP2 LNG Project Murky

The timing (even the very future) for Venture Global’s proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export plant is murky at best. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in June issued a 2-1 decision to approve the project (see FERC Approves Expansion of Venture Global’s CP LNG Export Plant). However, the project is on hold (with…

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Feds & PA Soak PennEnergy with $2M Fine, $3.6M Upgrades re Emissions

PennEnergy Resources, LLC, the 11th largest shale driller in Pennsylvania, agreed to a “deal” with the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ), the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Josh Shapiro Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to pay a $2 million fine and spend another $3.6 million on “upgrades” related to air emissions at its…

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PA+WV+OH Produced Nearly One-Third of All U.S. NatGas in 2023

Yesterday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported five states produced more than 70% of the record 113.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2023. Two of the five were in the Marcellus/Utica: Pennsylvania (18% of the country’s gas) and West Virginia (8% of the country’s gas). We…

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Methane Emissions in Marcellus/Utica Down 52% from 2019 to 2023

The environmental left is hellbent on regulating fossil fuels, including oil and natural gas, out of existence. One of their favorite (false) memes is to claim methane is a bazillion times more “potent” in causing global warming than other things, like carbon dioxide. The false narrative continues that shale drilling is causing a stratospheric increase…

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Dec. STEO Predicts 40% Higher NatGas Price for Winter 2024/25

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook yesterday, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In October, the EIA predicted the average spot price for natural gas would be $3.10/MMBtu in 2025 (see Oct. STEO Predicts Lower Output,…

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Trump Promises Expedited Enviro Permits for New Investments of $1B+

Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump posted an interesting message to his Truth Social account: “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” The implication is that the…

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