The following Shale Directories Members are OPEN for BUSINESS during COVID-19 related shutdown.*
Support them when and how you can!
ACF Environmental
Allison Crane & Rigging
Anderson Excavating
American Energy Fabrication
Barbco, Inc.
Beaver Excavating
Boyd CAT
Cintas
Dawood Engineering
Doss Enterprises
EJ Breneman, L.L.C.
Frontier Group of Companies
Furbay Electric, Oil & Gas Division
Green Valley Seed
HYTORC Penn Ohio
Inland Tarp and Liner
Kessel Construction
MJ Painting Contractor Corp.
Mansfield Crane Service
Marshall County Co-Op – Southern States
Mustang Sampling
NAI Spring/Bryce Custer
Oglebay Resort and Conference Center
ORT Tool
Skycasters Converged Wireless
Wampum Hardware
Water Transport
Zimmerman Steel and Supply Company, Inc.
*list subject to change
Shale Directories Conferences
8th Annual Utica Downstream
New Date February 25, 2021
Holiday Inn at Belden Village
North Canton, OH
https://www.uticadownstream.com/
Appalachian Basin Real Estate Conference
New Date: March 25, 2021
Oglebay Resort
Wheeling, WV
NEW Appalachian Hydrogen Carbon Capture Conference NEW
April 8, 2021
Hilton Garden Inn
Southpointe, Canonsburg, PA
Latest facts and rumors from the Marcellus, Utica, Permian, and Eagle Ford Plays
DOE’s Report — “Fracking Ban” Destroys the Economy. The US Department of Energy submitted a report to the president last month on “Economic and National Security Impacts under a Hydraulic Fracturing Ban.” This 80-page report analyzed the effects of a hypothetical United States ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing technology used with any new or existing onshore wells starting in 2021 through 2025. Such a ban, the report predicts, would result in the loss of millions of jobs, price spikes at the gas pump, and higher electricity costs for all Americans. The report goes on to predict that a ban would eliminate the United States’ status as the top oil and gas producing country, return the United States to a net importer of oil and gas by 2025, weaken the United States’ geopolitical standing, and negatively affect its national security.
Since the domestic shale revolution began in earnest in 2008, the use of horizontal drilling with high-volume hydraulic fracturing has become highly prevalent, making the development of formerly unprofitable formations profitable. The report concludes that a ban would make development of unconventional onshore oil and natural gas resources uneconomic, effectively halting new development. The report predicts staggering economic damage, including 7.7 million fewer jobs, $1.1 trillion less in GDP, including $950 billion less in labor income, “inevitably stunting] the post-pandemic economic recovery.” The projected harm includes a predicted 244% increase in natural gas prices by 2025, increased household energy bills, higher fuel costs for industrial and commercial customers, higher and more frequent electricity price spikes, and deteriorating competitiveness of the US energy supply in the global market.
Environmentally, the report concludes that a ban would cause higher emissions since a reduction in natural gas consumption would result in greater use of sources emitting higher levels of greenhouse gases. As the report indicates, “natural gas [has] serve[d] as an important enabler for integrating low-carbon intermittent renewables like wind and solar.” Emissions of CO2, NOx, and S02 would rise 16%, 17%, and 62% by 2025, respectively.
The report also concluded that a ban will significantly impact national security. With a ban, the report claims that the United States would once again become a net importer of natural gas by 2025, and the United States would return to reliance on imports from foreign nations. The report argues that curtailing American natural gas and oil production would remove an important tool for American diplomacy while increasing global energy dependence on Russia and OPEC. Further, the report noted that with limited domestic opportunities, oil and gas companies would likely invest in oil and gas production in foreign countries.
In summary, the report concludes that “eliminating the primary technology responsible for the growth in the United States oil and natural gas production would increase natural gas, transportation fuel and electricity prices initiating a ripple effect of severe consequences to the Nation’s economy, environment, and geopolitical standing.”
$300 Billion in Hydrogen Projects Coming. Hydrogen Council on a Feb. 17, 2021 report coauthored with consultancy McKinsey: “There are now 228 large-scale projects for a combined $300 billion of proposed investment through to 2030, it said, with $80 billion of this either in advanced planning, having passed a final investment decision or under construction or commissioned.”
The first of its kind US Appalachian Hydrogen and Carbon Capture Conference will take place on April 8th, 2012. You will hear from companies building projects today in the US, and investments in advanced planning as well as US Government resources to the new hydrogen economy.
Manchin Continues to Support the O&G Industry. Manchin letter to the President highlighting the importance of fracking. Last week, Senator Manchin of West Virginia sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to carefully consider the benefits of natural gas as Biden forms his energy policy: “Responsible production of natural gas and practices like hydraulic fracturing have improved our nation’s energy security while supporting the nearly 1.5 million hard working Americans the industry employs.” Manchin highlights the role that the “shale revolution” played in America’s energy security and which resulted in the “U.S. becoming a net total energy exporter in 2019 for the first time in 67 years.”
UGI Energy Services Makes Another Pipeline Purchase. Pine Run Gathering, a joint venture of Stonehenge Energy Resources and UGI Energy Services (UGIES) subsidiaries, has acquired Pine Run Midstream from a PennEnergy Resources affiliate for US$205 million.
PennEnergy, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based independent oil and gas company, is an Appalachian-based producer and anchor customer on the Pine Run system. Stonehenge III is the third partnership between Energy Spectrum Capital and Stonehenge Energy Resources management.
Pine Run Midstream operates 43 miles (69.2 km) of dry gas gathering pipeline and compression assets located in Butler and Armstrong counties in western Pennsylvania. The Pine Run Midstream system has been in operation since 2014 and will be operated by Stonehenge.
Pine Run Gathering is Stonehenge’s fourth venture in the Appalachian basin. This is the second recent investment in Appalachian basin natural gas gathering systems by UGIES as it continues to invest in assets well positioned in highly productive areas of the Marcellus Shale. UGIES will add its ownership stake in Pine Run Gathering to UGI Appalachia, which operates gathering assets in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
Are Methane Rules Coming? ‘Comprehensive’ methane rule in sight under Biden administration, experts say. Environmental experts said Thursday momentum behind the new presidential administration brings the promise of a comprehensive methane rule in sight – a move that would have a significant impact on Pennsylvania, one of the top natural gas-producing states. Dan Grossman, senior director of advocacy for the Environmental Defense Fund, said controlling methane emissions from the oil and gas sector remains an important component of lowering greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
FERC Moves Boost Biden’s Energy Plan. FERC moves could shift Biden’s clean energy plan, Texas grid. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Glick announced a series of decisions yesterday that could significantly alter Texas’ grid and boost President Biden’s zero-carbon and environmental justice goals. The influential panel moved to revise its natural gas pipeline reviews to account for impacts to disadvantaged communities, break down market barriers to renewable energy deployment and shutter a Trump-era inquiry into grid resilience, among other actions.
The “DEEP FREEZE” Will Be Here for a While. The deep freeze will wreak havoc on oil and gas production for several days — if not weeks — according to industry experts, as companies deal with frozen equipment and a lack of power to run operations.
Texas produces more oil and natural gas than any other state, and its operators, unlike those in North Dakota or Alaska, are not accustomed to dealing with frigid temperatures. Numerous refineries in Texas have also been shut, though weather events rarely knock substantial amounts of production offline in oil patches far from the Gulf coast.
Roughly 500,000 to 1.2 million barrels per day of the state’s crude production has been shut in by the weather, which hit Texas with the coldest temperatures in 30 years, analysts at Rystad Energy said. The ripple effect from the cold is likely to reduce output for several weeks.
Icy roads in the Permian Basin, the top U.S. shale field, halted the trucking of everything from sand supplies to cement, while a loss of power that affected millions of Texas residents also cut electricity to oil pumps and saltwater disposal facilities. In some instances, wellheads froze. Cellular service, used to send data from wellsites to headquarters, was lost.
Wellheads have frozen, cell service is out, icy roads have halted all trucking, and the power is out.
“They haven’t had the electricity available to make the pumps work,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright, one of the state’s three elected industry regulators. “Some producers in West Texas had to shut in entire fields when they lost power.”
Chevron Corp said the widespread power loss had led to “a significant production shut-in of our Permian assets,” while Exxon Mobil said its shale operations in the region were operating at “reduced capacity.”
Power interruptions for Texland Petroleum, which has 1,200 wells in the Permian Basin, started on Monday morning, President Jim Wilkes said.
Some wells were disconnected by the power company or have had rotating outages. At others, oil haulers stopped picking up oil due to road conditions. “When the stock tanks fill up with oil, we have to shut in the wells,” Wilkes said.
Wilkes expects to restart production this weekend, but it will take a week to return to normal.
Two of Abraxas Petroleum Corp’s Permian oil wells were frozen in, but a “silver lining” was that the company’s natural gas wells continued producing, said Chief Executive Bob Watson.
“Time will tell when things get back to normal and how much well work will be required to get them back on,” he said.
Permian wells produce prolific amounts of water, so production streams can easily freeze in surface valves. That, along with the loss of electrical power, contributed to the loss in output, analysts at Wood Mackenzie said. Many wells rely on gas lift, and those lines freeze easily, too.
“There’s no recent precedent for this and it’s really due to the severity and the duration of the cold weather,” said Marc Amons, a Wood Mackenzie analyst.
Accessibility has been a major constraint, said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association.
“Hazardous travel conditions limit the accessibility to repair equipment, it limits the ability for service companies to reach production sites. You have unplanned communication and power outages that all create difficulties,” Staples said.
The cold weather spillover has affected producers in North Dakota’s Bakken shale field, which suffered temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit earlier this month, said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.
“I think we’ll see some fairly significant impacts” on production, said Ness, in part because of blackouts from electric supply sent south, he said. Oil production in the Bakken slipped to 1.19 million barrels per day in December, the latest month for which data is available.
More recently, well completions, which foreshadow future production, fell 40 percent in the first half of February as severe weather descended, Ness said.
The state’s oil production declined by 35,000 barrels per day in December over November, and will fall further in January and February, said Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s director of mineral resources.
“We could see double the production drop in January and see similar production drops in this cold weather,” said Helms.
Energy Transfer Makes Another Purchase. Energy Transfer to take out Enable Midstream for $7.2 Billion, expand natural gas footprint. Major U.S. pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP said Wednesday it would pay $2.6 billion in an all-stock deal to acquire Enable Midstream Partners LP. Including debt, the transaction is valued at $7.2 billion. Energy Transfer, whose plan to expand the controversial Dakota Access crude oil pipeline has been met with repeated court challenges and setbacks, would pick up natural gas gathering and processing assets across parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, while also combining Enable’s assets with its own existing gas operations on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
NatGas Production to Fall from February to March. Natural gas production from seven key U.S. shale plays to fall from February to March, EIA says. Natural gas production from seven key U.S. shale plays is set to fall by a combined 560 MMcf/d from February to March as output from most major producing regions is expected to slow over the next month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Combined natural gas output from the Anadarko, Appalachian and Permian basins, as well as from the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Niobrara shales, is set to fall from 82.586 Bcf/d in February to 82.026 Bcf/d in March, according to EIA’s latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), published Tuesday.
How Do You Restart a Frozen Well? Restarting oil and gas wells closed by the extreme cold sweeping much of the U.S. isn’t going to be quick or easy, even once the ice thaws and power is restored. Oil production nationwide has been cut by at least a third and in the Permian Basin of Texas, the heart of America’s shale industry, output has plummeted by as much as 65%.
Weeks of Depressed Oil Production. U.S. shale could face weeks of depressed oil production due to cold. Reuters. The U.S. deep freeze will wreak havoc on oil and gas production for several days if not weeks, according to industry experts, as companies deal with frozen equipment and a lack of power to run operations. Texas produces more oil and natural gas than any other U.S. state, and its operators, unlike those in North Dakota or Alaska, are not accustomed to dealing with frigid temperatures. Numerous refineries in Texas have also been shut, though weather events rarely knock substantial amounts of production offline in oil patches far from the Gulf coast.
Ohio River Valley Institute Report Is Misleading. Rep. Balderson calls report stating decline of oil, gas industry “misleading”. Pennsylvania Business Report. U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) criticized a recent report from the think tank Ohio River Valley Institute that said 22 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia responsible for 90 percent of the oil and gas production in the Appalachian region saw their share of jobs, personal income, and population all decline since the start of the fracking boom in 2008. “This so-called report is nothing more than a scam to undermine the energy sector, which has long withstood slanderous labels and stereotypes that demean the livelihoods of blue-collar workers,” Balderson said.
Occidental Issues Force Majeure. Occidental issues force majeure as cold shuts in Permian oil. Bloomberg. Occidental Petroleum Corp., the second-largest oil producer in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, told buyers it will be forced to curtail deliveries due to complications from the historic freeze in the region. The company said weather disrupted transportation facilities and forced delays in the receipt and delivery of oil by carriers, according to a force majeure notice to customers seen by Bloomberg.
You Cannot Electrify Everything! This blizzard exposes the perils of attempting to ‘electrify everything’. Forbes. The massive blast of Siberia-like cold that is wreaking havoc across North America is proving that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come. That cold reality contradicts the “electrify everything” scenario that’s being promoted by climate change activists, politicians, and academics.
VV What the blackout crisis reveals about renewables, grid. E&E News. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said yesterday that he’s asking state lawmakers to mandate the winterization of the electric system in the wake of a deadly storm that stretched the Texas grid nearly to collapse. “I’m calling for the funding needed to ensure that this winterization and modernization occurs,” Abbott said during a news conference. Winterization involves practices such as de-icing wind turbines and adding insulation or heating to prevent parts from freezing at conventional power plants.
Articles about the Texas “Deep Freeze”
Illegal to Bar NatGas Imports. Texas mandate to bar natural gas exports during power crisis likely unenforceable – official. Reuters. Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued an executive order restricting gas exports and asked the state regulator to “take all reasonable steps” to keep fuel in Texas until Sunday, a decision challenged by gas importer Mexico. Days of freezing temperatures shut in about one-fifth of the region’s refining capacity, shuttered oil and natural gas wells and affected power generation in Mexico, which imports Texas natural gas.
Jerry Jones Is Making a Killing. Jerry Jones’ gas company ‘hits jackpot’ with surge during Texas power outages. Houston Chronicle. The natural gas producer owned by Dallas billionaire Jerry Jones is cashing in on a surge in prices for the fuel as a brutal freeze grips the central U.S., leaving millions without power. Comstock Resources Inc. has been able to sell gas from its Haynesville Shale wells in East Texas and northern Louisiana at premium prices since Thursday. As demand jumps amid the cold, gas at some regional hubs has soared past $1,000 per million British thermal units.
Biden Sends Diesel Generators to TX. Biden rescues Texas with . . . oil. Wall Street Journal. Opinion. With Texans shivering as power outages continue for a fourth day, the Biden Administration announced it is deploying diesel generators to the state. Yes, good ol’ dirty diesel fuel is coming to the rescue again. The left’s denialism that the failure of wind power played a starring role in Texas’s catastrophic power outage has been remarkable. Liberals blame gas plants for not covering wind’s you-know-what when turbines froze amid surging demand.
PA Permit February 11, to February 18, 2021
County Township E&P Companies
- Armstrong East Franklin Snyder Bros
- Armstrong East Franklin Snyder Bros
- Armstrong East Franklin Snyder Bros
- Greene Whitely Greylock Prod
- Greene Whitely Greylock Prod
- Washington Blaine Range
- Washington Blaine Range
- Washington Blaine Range
- Washington Blaine Range
OH Permits February 11, to February 18, 2021
County Township E&P Companies
- Belmont Wheeling Ascent
- Belmont Wheeling Ascent
- Belmont Wheeling Ascent
- Columbiana Washington EAP OHIO
- Columbiana Washington EAP OHIO
WV Permits February 8, to February 12, 2021
- Harrison H G Energy II
- Harrison H G Energy II
- Harrison H G Energy II
- Wetzel SWN
