Facts & Rumors # 585
February 15, 2025
PJM to Fast Track Power Plants. Biggest U.S. grid gets OK to fast-track power plants amid AI boom. Bloomberg. The largest US grid has won federal approval to fast-track the review of dozens of new power-plant projects in a one-time push to shore up supplies as a proliferation of data centers for artificial intelligence boosts demand. PJM Interconnection LLC, which manages a 13-state network stretching from the East Coast to Chicago, will review up to 50 new projects specifically to boost grid reliability starting in April to help avoid potential shortages toward the end of this decade, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in an order issued late Tuesday. E&E News also reports.
MPLX Doubles NatGas and NGL Spending. MPLX LP management said it plans to invest the lion’s share of its 2025 capital budget in its natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) services segment to support customer growth focused largely on grid electrification and data center development.
U.S. EIA Projects Oil, NatGas Production Growth in 2025 Amid Stalling Rigs. S&P Global. US exploration and production companies kept drilling activity flat in January, according to the US Energy Information Administration, a cadence that is generally expected to continue in the months ahead before rig counts set off on a decline as oil producers face down lackluster crude prices and natural gas-weighted operators await a sustained call for additional supply.
NatGas Up 23% in 2025. Thanks, MDN. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA said the natural gas price at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub is expected to average $3.80 per million British thermal units (MMBtus) in 2025—up about 23% from its January forecast ($3.10). EIA also raised its estimate for 2026, putting the annual average price at $4.20 MMBtus, up 5% compared with $4.00 in its January report.
Chevron to Cut 20% of Global Workforce. Chevron to lay off up to 20% of global workforce. Reuters. Chevron will lay off 15% to 20% of its global workforce by the end of 2026, the U.S. oil company said on Wednesday as it seeks to cut costs, simplify its business, and complete a major acquisition. The No. 2 U.S. oil producer has faced production challenges including cost overruns and delays in a large Kazakhstan oilfield project. Meanwhile, its $53-billion deal to acquire oil producer Hess and gain a foothold in Guyana’s lucrative oilfield is in limbo due to a court battle with larger rival Exxon Mobil, which has outperformed it with production growth, achieving record production in Guyana and the biggest oilfield in the United States. Also covered by New York Times.
Latvia: Let’s Buy More U.S. LNG to Hurt Russia, Placate Trump. Politico. Latvia is keen to secure more U.S. gas in an effort to appease Donald Trump — an endorsement of the EU’s emerging strategy to prevent a trade war with the new U.S. president. “We are interested in strengthening energy cooperation with our strategic partner, the United States, including increasing [liquefied natural gas] imports,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze told POLITICO in an interview.
Indian Oil Companies in Talks to Buy U.S. LNG Supplies. Reuters. Indian oil companies are looking to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), buoyed by the Trump administration’s lifting of a ban on export permits for new projects, Oil Secretary Pankaj Jain said on Monday. The world’s fourth largest importer of LNG, India aims to raise the share of gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 from 6.2% now. “Indian oil companies are talking to U.S. companies for additional LNG sourcing,” Jain said, adding that among such companies were GAIL (India) Ltd, Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp.
Tech Pressures on Oilfield Service Companies. Oilfield service companies feeling tech’s pressure. Odessa American. The advancements in technology that have decreased the number of drilling rigs have put the humongous Permian Basin oilfield service industry in a jam and the Texas Oil & Gas, Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners and Permian Basin Petroleum associations say innovation has become their key to survival. TIPRO President Ed Longanecker said innovation has been driving efficiencies in the oilpatch for years including longer laterals, the ability to hydraulically fracture multiple wells at once with simul-fracs and other technologies that help reduce costs and increase productivity.
Trump Picks Oil Insider to Manage Drilling on Public Lands. Trump taps oil industry insider to oversee drilling on public lands. Washington Post. President Donald Trump has nominated oil and gas advocate Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management. The nomination of Sgamma, who heads a Denver-based oil and gas industry trade group called the Western Energy Alliance, heralds a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property. Jeff Eshelman, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small oil producers, praised Sgamma’s selection while critiquing the Biden administration. “Kathleen understands the technical and operational challenges facing natural gas and oil producers that work on federal lands,” Eshelman said in a statement.
Aramco’s TX Refinery to Become Largest in the U.S. Aramco’s Motiva expands Texas refinery to become largest in U.S. Bloomberg. Motiva Enterprises has quietly expanded its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery to become the largest fuel making plant in the US. The refinery can now process as much as 654,000 barrels of crude a day, more than the biggest U.S. plants owned by Exxon Mobil and Marathon Petroleum. Saudi Aramco-owned Motiva was able to increase Port Arthur’s capacity by removing bottlenecks in its processes, according to people familiar with the plant’s operations.
BP Recharging U.S Shale Reservoirs. BP surprised by ‘recharging’ U.S. shale oil reservoirs. Upstream Online. UK supermajor BP has discovered that some of its US shale oil reservoirs are unexpectedly being “recharged”, offering a potential route to significantly increase profits at its BPX Energy business. In another move to boost margins, BPX is also assessing whether to take advantage of higher US gas prices by raising production levels.
Texas’ Energy Demand May Exceed Supply in 2026, But Experts Caution against Panic. Texas Tribune. Texas’ main grid operator on Thursday forecast that the state’s growing demand for power could surpass its available energy supply beginning in summer 2026. In a report outlining potential supply and demand over the next five years, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said it’s possible that the grid would not have enough power to meet peak demand during the summer and winter seasons starting next year.
TX Has an Oil Problem. Newsweek. There are fears oil supplies to Texas could be negatively impacted after a report found U.S. oil refineries along the Gulf Coast have reduced purchases from Pemex, the Mexican state-owned oil company, after discovering its Maya crude contained up to six percent water.
ET to Supply NatGas to CloudBurst AI Data Centers. Energy Transfer to supply natural gas to AI data center in Texas. Bloomberg. Pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP will provide natural gas directly to CloudBurst Data Centers, Inc. as companies prepare for an expected boom in power demand from artificial intelligence. Energy Transfer’s Oasis Pipeline, LP, will provide as much as 450,000 million British thermal units per day of natural gas to supply CloudBurst’s data center campus outside of San Marcos, Texas, Energy Transfer said Monday in a statement. The pipeline will send power directly to the data center, bypassing existing transmission grids. Also covered by Power Magazine.
Allied Energy to Supply NatGas to TX Crypto Mining Facility. Allied Energy strikes deal to supply natural gas for Texas crypto mining facility. Data Center Dynamic. Allied Energy has signed a natural gas purchase and sale agreement with River Energy Group and Louis Energy to power a cryptocurrency operation in Texas. Under the agreement, Louis Energy has secured exclusive rights to purchase natural gas from the Thiel Well 1 in Washington County, Texas. The gas will power a cryptocurrency mining facility located near the wellhead. Louis Energy will construct and manage the facility, which will have an initial capacity of 1MW, with the potential to scale to 2-3.5MW.
Republicans to Identify and Limit EPA’s Authority. Republicans plan bill to define EPA’s authority. E&E News. House Energy and Commerce Republicans are working on a first-of-its-kind effort that would lay out EPA’s powers in a single piece of legislation. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), chair of the Environment Subcommittee, told POLITICO’s E&E News he is in the early stages of developing a potentially bipartisan bill that would lay out all of EPA’s existing statutory authority.
NY Approves Expansion of Iroquois Pipeline. You can include this in one of the Lesser Miracles. Last Friday, at the direction of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, her Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) approved permits to expand two Hudson Valley compressor stations along the Iroquois gas pipeline. The Iroquois Gas Transmission’s Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project will increase horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, to flow more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England. The two NY compressor expansions include one in Dover and one in Athens. The CT compressor expansion is located in Brookfield. Another CT compressor will get minor upgrades (gas cooling, no extra compression) in Milford. The DEC approved the permits for the NY compressors *if* Iroquois pays $1.5 million to the “Disadvantaged Community Benefit Program.”
January DUC’s Report. Four of the US’s most prolific unconventional plays in January recorded sharp year-over-year decreases in drilled, but uncompleted wells, just-released federal data reveals.
The Energy Information Administration’s February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) reported 2,264 DUCs combined in Appalachia (the Marcellus and Utica Shales plays), the Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian basins.
The total was down 519 wells, or 18.6%, from January 2024’s 2,783-well total, according to the STEO. The latest total was down a minuscule three DUCs from the December 2024 total.
The biggest numerical and percentage drops came in the Eagle Ford play, down 214 DUCs, or 42.3%, to 292, from 506 one year ago. The Permian Basin’s DUCs total fell by 124 wells, or 12.1%, to 900 from 1,024 one year ago.
The latest Eagle Ford total was down three wells from last December, while the Permian actually experienced a 12-well, month-to-month increase from December, STEO revealed.
In the Bakken, the number of DUCs in January was 319, down 105 wells, or 24.8%, from 424 recorded in January 2024, STEO reported. Appalachia saw the smallest decrease in DUCs, down 76 wells, or 9.2%, to 753 last month from 829 one year ago.
The Bakken’s latest DUCs total was down seven wells from December 2024’s 326, while Appalachia lost an additional five wells from December to January.
The next Short-Term Energy Outlook is scheduled to be released March 11, EIA said.
PA February 3, to February 13, 2025
County Township E&P Companies
1. Armstrong East Franklin Snyder Bros.
2. Greene Springhill EQT
3. Washington Chartiers Range
4. Washington Chartiers Range
5. Washington Chartiers Range
6. Washington Chartiers Range
7. Washington Chartiers Range
8. Washington Chartiers Range
9. Washington Smith Range
10. Washington Smith Range
11. Washington Smith Range
OH February 2, to February 8, 2025
County Township E&P Companies
1. Carroll Lee EAP OHIO
2. Carroll Lee EAP OHIO
3. Carroll Lee EAP OHIO
4. Carroll Lee EAP OHIO
5. Harrison Washington Gulfport
6. Harrison Washington Gulfport
7. Harrison Washington Gulfport
8. Harrison Washington Gulfport
WV Permits January 20, to January 24, 2025
1. Marshall EQT
2. Marshall EQT
3. Marshall EQT
4. Marshall EQT
5. Marshall EQT
6. Marshall EQT
7. Marshall EQT
8. Marshall EQT
9. Marshall EQT
10. Marshall EQT
11. Marshall EQT
12. Marshall EQT
13. Marshall EQT
14. Marshall EQT
15. Marshall EQT
16. Marshall EQT
17. Tyler Antero
18. Tyler Antero
19. Tyler Antero
20. Tyler Antero
21. Tyler Antero
22. Wetzel EQT
23. Wetzel EQT
24. Wetzel EQT
25. Wetzel EQ
26. Wetzel EQT
