Facts & Rumors # 582
January 25, 2025
Trump’s ‘Energy Emergency’ Comes Amid Soaring U.S. Oil and Gas Production. E&E News. President Donald Trump enters office as U.S. oil and gas production breaks records and gasoline prices hit three-year lows. But that didn’t stop the new president from declaring a “national energy emergency” Monday evening in a bid to boost fossil fuels. “Misguided, irrational energy policies are done,” said Jeff Eshelman, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “The new Administration recognizes the importance of American energy dominance at home and abroad.”
Why Trump Is Pledging to Refill the SPR.. Bloomberg. President Donald Trump’s plan to refill the US’s emergency crude storage system — “right to the top,” in his words — would help protect against future oil-price shocks. But it’s easier said than done. About half the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — aka SPR — was drained between 2020 and 2023, largely because former President Joe Biden sold barrels to bring down gasoline prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as Congress ordered sales to fund the government.
Trump Boosts Court Ruling That Bulldozed White House NEPA Regs. E&E News. As part of his sweeping “energy emergency” declaration, President Donald Trump is cementing a stunning court ruling that cut back the White House’s role in orchestrating environmental reviews for major projects like pipelines, highways and dams. On Monday, the newly elected president revoked a decades-old executive order giving the White House Council on Environmental Quality the power to craft rules for how agencies comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.
Trump Makes Good on All His Energy Promises: ‘Golden’ U.S. Oil, Gas, & LNG Age and Offshore Wind Pause in Effect. Offshore Energy. In with fossil fuels, out with renewables seems to be the prevailing theme running on a loop to describe the newly sworn-in U.S. President’s energy policy, as fears continue to mount over the changes President Donald Trump has set in motion by declaring a national energy emergency, a temporary freeze on offshore wind leasing, reversal of the U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permitting pause, and others he plans to implement to bolster Big Oil’s role in the energy sector while narrowing down and even cutting off support for some clean energy alternatives considered crucial to power the transformation to net zero.
Trump’s Energy Emergency Should Withstand Court Challenges. Trump US energy emergency order should withstand court challenges. Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency to boost drilling and speed up pipeline construction should withstand court challenges but will not allow oil and gas producers to skirt all environmental laws, according to legal experts. Trump, a Republican who campaigned on a promise to “drill baby drill,” has said the declaration will speed permitting and approval of energy projects to fix what he has called an inadequate and unaffordable U.S. energy supply. Trump’s energy declaration, among the executive orders he signed his first day in office, invokes a federal law giving the president broad discretion to declare emergencies and unlock special powers.
NatGas and Coal Save PJM. Thanks, MDN. On January 22, with the bitter cold blast (called a polar vortex) hitting the eastern half of the country, the PJM power grid, which covers all or parts of 13 states plus the District of Columbia (including all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia), experienced its largest single-day power draw EVER. The grid came through with flying colors thanks to natural gas, which provided an average of 42.5% of the total power produced yesterday, and coal, which produced 22.9% of all the power produced yesterday. Add in oil with another 3%, and fossil fuels carried the heavy load by producing 68.4% of PJM’s electricity yesterday. How much did solar and wind produce? An infinitesimally small 4.46% of the electricity produced yesterday. Nuclear produced nearly a quarter of PJM’s electricity yesterday at 24.5%.
Kinder Morgan to Build $1.7B Texas Pipeline to Serve LNG Sector. Hart Energy. Kinder Morgan will build a 1.5-Bcf/d natural gas pipeline, the Trident Intrastate, to move gas from the Houston area to the LNG and industrial corridor near Port Arthur, Texas, the company said Jan. 22. The company expects the $1.7 billion, a 216-mile pipeline, originating in Katy, Texas, to begin service in first-quarter 2027, pending receipt of required permits and approvals. CEO Kim Dang said that for several quarters the company has pointed to “expected significant new natural gas demand for LNG, power plants and emerging opportunities such as artificial intelligence operations, cryptocurrency mining, data centers and industrial re-shoring.”
MD Dem Wants NatGas. Thanks, MDN. This is another in a series of observations that we (fossil fuel advocates) are winning. Finally, we are having an impact. The official party line of the Democrats has been to block the use of any and all fossil fuel energy by amping up regulations and passing laws to limit or eliminate its production, transportation, and even usage (witness the Dems trying to outlaw gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters over the past couple of years). Those efforts have failed spectacularly. And now, some Dems admit their failure, like Maryland General Assembly member C.T. Wilson from Charles County. He told Baltimore’s Fox affiliate that the state “should be open to using natural gas to meet its green energy goals.” There you go. A Dem just redefined natural gas as “green” so he and his party can save face. Whatever. At least they’re beginning to admit what everyone else already knows: The use of natural gas isn’t going away.
Big Oil Majors Flirt with Electricity. Wall Street Journal. Artificial intelligence has suddenly made electricity a hot commodity. No wonder major oil companies want a piece of it. Both Exxon Mobil and Chevron triangle said last month that they are talking to potential data-center customers on deals to supply natural-gas-fired power paired with carbon-capture technology. Exxon is working on a power-plant design with at least 1.5 gigawatts of capacity—enough to power more than a million homes. TotalEnergies, which has a power business, last year bought 1.5 GW of natural-gas-fired power plants near Dallas and Houston in Texas.
EIA Projects Lower Oil Price in 2025. EIA forecasts lower oil price in 2025 amid significant market uncertainties. Energy Information Administration. We forecast benchmark Brent crude oil prices will fall from an average of $81 per barrel (b) in 2024 to $74/b in 2025 and $66/b in 2026, as strong global growth in production of petroleum and other liquids and slower demand growth put downward pressure on prices and help offset heightened geopolitical risks and voluntary production restraint from OPEC+ members. This forecast was completed before the United States issued additional sanctions targeting Russia’s oil sector on January 10, which have the potential to reduce Russia’s oil exports to the global market.
EIA Looks for Higher Wholesale NatGas Prices in 2025 & 2026. EIA expects higher wholesale U.S. natural gas prices as demand increases. EIA. We expect increases in the Henry Hub natural gas price in 2025 and 2026 as demand for natural gas grows faster than supply, driven mainly by more demand from U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities, reducing the natural gas in storage compared with the last two years. In our January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub natural gas spot price to increase in 2025 to average $3.10 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) and in 2026 to average $4.00/MMBtu from the record low set in 2024.
Trump Names New FERC Commissioner. Thanks, MDN. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie, who first became a FERC commissioner when appointed by President Trump during his first term, was promoted to become the Chairman of FERC by Trump on Monday. Wow! We never saw that one coming. We didn’t even know Trump had FERC on his radar for the first day, let alone the first week or month. Yet he did. Christie replaces Democrat Willie Phillips as Chairman. Phillips, who frankly we liked, was appointed by Joe Biden. Phillips ran afoul of many leftwing Democrats because he sided with the two Republicans on the commission to form a 3-member majority in approving pipeline projects. Phillips will remain as a “regular” commissioner.
OH Crude Production. Condensate production in the Utica Shale’s volatile oil window in eastern Ohio has more than doubled over the past three years, and plans by the handful of E&Ps that focus on the super-light crude oil suggest that output will increase further this year and next. Who are these producers, why do they see such promise for condensate growth in the Utica, and how are they measuring their success? In today’s RBN blog, we continue examining rising condensate production in eastern Ohio with a look at the leading E&Ps in this space.
As we said in Part 1, the Marcellus/Utica region in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia is now one of the world’s most prolific and vital natural gas production areas, with output currently topping 32 Bcf/d and decades of reserves yet to be tapped. The overlapping shale plays generate hundreds of thousands of barrels of NGLs per day consumed in the Northeast and Midwest, piped or railed away to other U.S. and Canadian markets, or sent to the Marcus Hook or Repauno LPG export terminals near Philadelphia to be shipped overseas.
What’s less well-known is that parts of the Utica play (mostly in a few counties in eastern Ohio) also produce relatively modest amounts of crude oil, almost all condensate with an API value (or viscosity) of 55 to 59 degrees (and sometimes as high as 65 degrees). More recently, at least a couple of E&Ps in the Utica have been producing small volumes of heavy condensate with an API value closer to 50 degrees — still far lighter than West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which has an API of about 40 degrees.
Condensate production in eastern Ohio has been on a tear since the winter of 2021-22, topping more than 100 Mb/d in recent months. Pronouncements from the producers active in that slice of the Utica Shale indicate output could rise by tens of thousands of additional barrels per day — or maybe even double again, to past 200 Mb/d — in the next few years.
Infinity Resources to Launch IPO. Thanks, MDN. MDN reported in October that Marcellus/Utica driller Infinity Natural Resources (INR) intended to file an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission hoping to raise $100 million (see M-U Driller Infinity Natural Resources Files for $100 Million IPO). We further reported in December that INR added seven Big Banks to the existing list of four as underwriters (see Infinity Natural Resources Picks Up Another 7 Banks for Utica IPO). All signs pointed to an imminent launch of the IPO. That day is here. INR announced yesterday that it has launched an offering of 13.25 million shares of stock, hoping to fetch between $18.00 and $21.00 per share.
PA January 13, to January 23, 2025
County Township E&P Companies
1. Beaver Independence Range
2. Bradford Tuscarora Chesapeake
3. Bradford Tuscarora Chesapeake
4. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
5. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
6. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
7. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
8. Greene Gilmore EQT
9. Greene Gilmore EQT
10. Greene Gilmore EQT
11. Greene Gilmore EQT
12. Greene Gilmore EQT
13. Greene Gilmore EQT
14. Greene Gilmore EQT
15. Greene Springhill EQT
16. Washington Union EQT
17. Washington Union EQT
18. Washington Union EQT
19. Washington Union EQT
20. Washington Union EQT
21. Washington Union EQT
22. Washington Union EQT
23. Washington Union EQT
24. Washington Union EQT
25. Westmoreland Penn Apex Energy
OH January 12, to January 18, 2025
County Township E&P Companies
1. Carroll Brown EOG
2. Carroll Brown EOG
3. Carroll Brown EOG
4. Carroll Brown EOG
5. Carroll Brown EOG
6. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
7. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
8. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
9. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
10. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
11. Columbiana Elk Hilcorp
WV Permits January 13, to January 17, 2025
1. Doddridge Antero
2. Harrison HG Energy
3. Marion Marion Nat. En.
4. Wetzel EQT
