Shale Directories Conferences
SAVE THE DATE!
Utica Green Upstream & Midstream Conference
March 25, 2022
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Canton, OH
SPRING 2022 Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Conference
April 21, 2022
Registration OPEN NOW! (this will sell out)
Hilton Garden Inn, Southpointe
Canonsburg, PA
Latest facts and a rumor from the Marcellus, Utica, and Permian, Eagle Ford Plays
Williams Regional Energy Access Project Update. Natural gas and the infrastructure that carries it is critical to achieving a clean energy future. Regional Energy Access will help ease supply constraints affecting customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, providing enough natural gas supply equivalent to serve approximately 3 million homes. Regional gas demand continues to rise as businesses and power plants convert to cleaner-burning gas to reduce emissions and meet clean air goals. More importantly, natural gas is a natural partner with renewables, empowering their growth to achieve an even cleaner energy future.
The Regional Energy Access expansion has been designed to minimize environmental impacts by maximizing the use of existing Transco infrastructure and rights of way. The preliminary design of the project consists of additional compression and selected loop segments along the existing Transco corridor.
Economic Benefits
In addition to providing essential energy infrastructure to the region, the Regional Energy Access project will provide valuable economic stimulus, generating high quality will generate an estimated 6,396 local union jobs in the region, more than 36% of which will be construction and manufacturing jobs, with labor compensation totaling an estimated $295 million over the life of the project. Through the project’s activity, state and local governments can expect added revenue in response to land improvements and increased levels of taxable economic activity. Regional Energy Access’s total projected GDP contribution to the region is $357 million, with more than $17 million expected to be paid in state tax revenue and over $6.6 million expected in local tax revenue.
Energy Prices Up 50% in the UK. Millions of UK households will see their gas and electricity bills jump by more than 50 per cent in April after energy regulator Ofgem announced a record-breaking increase to its price cap.
The new cap will allow suppliers to charge customers a maximum of $2000 per year, meaning energy bills for the average household will increase by $1000.
For low- income families in the UK it’s “Heat or Eat.”
The UK closed all natural gas storage facilities in 2017 and switched to renewables which are supposed to supply 23% of UK energy for electricity. The wind is not blowing in the North Sea. UK is now scrambling to supply electricity for its citizens at any rate.
The government made terrible energy decisions in the rush to renewables. Now low-income families, 10% of population, are faced with “Heat or Eat.”
The U.S. cannot follow what the UK and many countries in Europe have done which is to race into renewables while destroying more tradition sources of energy and electricity. When this happens low-income families suffer disproportionately
Russian Confrontation
It’s all about energy. Germany rushed into renewables and closed nuclear power plants. Now the Germans are burning lignite, which is dirties possible coal, and hoping there can be some agreement with NATO and Russia so they can get cheap natural gas.
Why Is New England Paying the Equivalent of $180 Oil for NatGas? New Englanders had reason to feel a little more … European than usual. that’s because according to Department of Energy data they were paying a spot price of $30.5 per million British thermal units for natural gas.
This is an absurd price, in line with what Europeans, facing their worst energy crisis in a generation, have been suffering in recent months. To put it in context, $30.5 per mmBtu is the equivalent of paying $180 for a barrel of oil (double what it is today), or 20 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. In other words: nuts.
How much are Bostonians getting shafted on natural gas? By comparison, the spot price of gas on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana yesterday was $5.50 per mmBtu (the energy equivalent of about $33/bbl oil). This price spread is exceptionally wide, nearly unprecedented. But it’s easily explained — by the perennially misguided energy policy in New England.
Just 200 miles to the south, beneath western Pennsylvania, lay the nation’s biggest gas field — the Marcellus shale. From practically nothing 15 years ago, the Marcellus now provides roughly a third of America’s gas supply, more than 30 billion cubic feet per day. America’s shale gas fracking boom is the primary reason why the nation has been able to dramatically switch away from dirtier coal, and cut overall carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 20% — more than any other leading economy.
But very little Marcellus gas flows to New England, because NIMBYs and their politicians have blocked construction of pipelines. Yet the region still relies on cleaner-burning gas to fuel power plants. Over the weekend, when New England was walloped by snow, its power grid was running 37% natural gas, 22% oil, 22% nuclear, 11% renewables, 6% hydro power, and less than 1% coal. (See current mix here.)
And yet how does New England get its gas? Nearly all of it comes by ship, in giant insulated tankers carrying -260 degree condensed liquefied natural gas, most of which dock at the Everett LNG regasification terminal in Boston harbor, owned by Exelon Generation.
Freeze Stops some Permian Production. Texas cold halts some Permian oil as ice disrupts trucking. Bloomberg. The extreme cold that’s descended across Texas is prompting some oil producers in the Permian Basin to halt a small part of their output as icy roads disrupt critical trucking operations. One large Permian driller had about 4,000 barrels a day of crude production shut because of the weather, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be named as they’re not allowed to discuss it publicly. The shut-ins were partly because of the weather’s impact on the wells, and a lack of trucks to gather the crude, the person said. The region produces almost 5 million barrels a day of crude.
Exxon & Chevron Raise Permian Production. Exxon joins Chevron in Permian oil surge as peers preach caution. President Joe Biden, who has asked OPEC+ to raise oil production faster to tame runaway energy prices, just got a gift on his home turf instead: a blockbuster growth forecast for U.S. shale production from the country’s two biggest oil companies. Exxon Mobil Corp. said Tuesday it plans to boost output by 25% this year in the Permian Basin, the biggest U.S. oil-producing region. That comes four days after Chevron announced it will ramp up its own Permian supplies by 10%, from an even larger production base. Such aggressive targets from the Western world’s largest oil majors are a surefire sign that U.S. shale is back to growth mode after cuts in 2020 and a lackluster 2021.
Exxon 4th Qtr. Results. Exxon posts biggest profit in seven years on high oil prices. Exxon Mobil Corp on Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter profit of $8.87 billion, its largest in seven years, as the top U.S. oil producer benefited from strong energy prices. The company slashed spending after fuel demand cratered two years ago. Since then, earnings have topped pre-pandemic levels, helped by the rise in oil prices, with the global oil benchmark Brent also at a seven-year high.
Shell’s 4th Qtr. Results. Shell ends 2021 on high note, hikes dividend, buybacks again. Shell again boosted its dividend and share repurchases on Thursday after fourth quarter profits hit their highest in eight years, fueled by higher oil and gas prices and strong gas trading performance. The strong results cap a year of dramatic recovery for Shell and the oil and gas sector after energy demand and prices collapsed in 2020 in the wake of the Coronavirus epidemic. Shell shares were up 1.2% by 1015 GMT, compared with a 0.1% decline for the broader European energy index (.SXEP).
ConocoPhillips 4th Qtr. Results. Higher energy prices drive ConocoPhillips’ quarterly profit beat. U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips (COP.N) topped market estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Thursday and boosted its plan for shareholder returns by $1 billion, as it benefited from sharply higher oil and gas prices. Easing of global travel restrictions and tight supplies have sent crude oil prices to seven-year highs, lifting earnings of shale producers including ConocoPhillips and helping many of them shore up cash to boost investor returns. ConocoPhillips, which made two multi-billion-dollar acquisitions over the last two years, said its production, excluding Libya, rose to 1.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the fourth quarter, up by 423,000 boepd from last year.
Top 10 Shale Drillers in PA as of Jan. 2022 – Number of Wells Drilled. (Thanks, MDN) Cabot Oil & Gas, Chesapeake Energy, Chief Oil & Gas, CNX Resources, Diversified Gas & Oil, Energy Companies, EQT Corp, PennEnergy Resources, Range Resources Corp, Repsol, Seneca Resources, Southwestern Energy.
U.S. NatGas Helping Europe. Natural gas shipments, mostly from U.S., ease Europe’s energy crunch. The shipments to Europe in the fourth quarter of 2021 were up more than 40 percent from a year earlier and more than double the pace in January 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. The liquefied gas shipments have been unusually large and have even outpaced gas imports from Russia in recent weeks, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy research firm. This surge highlights the fuel’s “contribution to gas supply security,” said Gergely Molnar, an analyst at the International Energy Agency, during a webinar hosted by the Clingendael International Energy Program in the Netherlands.
Europe Labels NatGas & Nuclear “Green.” Europe labels nuclear and natural gas as sustainable investments. The European Union said on Wednesday that it would label some nuclear power and natural gas plants, under certain conditions, as “transitional” green investments in order to drastically cut the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions. The landmark legislation is “a signpost for private investment” and an “important step in the transition to a climate-neutral economy,” said Mairead McGuinness, the bloc’s commissioner for financial services. “As governments and public authorities, we cannot do this alone; we need the private sector to play its full part.”
WV AG Pushing to Save O&G Jobs. W.Va. AG leads effort to protect W.Va. oil, natural gas jobs. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey led a 24-state coalition in writing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday regarding a job-killing oil and natural gas rule proposed by the agency. The letter, sent to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, expressed concerns raised by the attorneys general about the rule, which would establish new standards of performance under the Clean Air Act for new and modified sources of methane in the oil and natural gas sector.
Hannathon to Sell TX land. U.S. oil producer Hannathon looks to sell Texas land – documents. Private U.S. oil and gas producer Hannathon Petroleum LLC has retained an investment bank to sell around 18,000 net acres in the Northern Midland basin of Texas, according to marketing documents seen by Reuters. The assets could be valued at around $500 million in a sale, a source familiar with the matter said. The source requested anonymity as the sale plan is confidential. Shale operators have leaned heavily on dealmaking in recent months as a strong rebound in oil and gas prices has given companies a window to sell assets at attractive prices. The global crude oil benchmark on Monday traded at over $91 a barrel, up 62% from a year earlier.
Double E Pipeline Expands in Permian. Double E Pipeline expands Permian gas deliveries amid drilling, production ramp. The 1.35 Bcf/d Double E Pipeline has begun delivering Permian Basin gas supply to Kinder Morgan’s intrastate Gulf Coast Express project in a bullish sign for West Texas and New Mexico production. Rising utilization on Double E Pipeline and its recent growth in delivered volumes to Kinder Morgan’s two intrastate lines comes as upstream activity in the Permian Basin continues to accelerate this year.
PA Permit January 27, to February 3, 2022
County Township E&P Companies
- Tioga Liberty PA Gen. Energy
- Tioga Westfield SWN
- Washington Mount Pleasant Range
OH Permits January 23, to January 29, 2022
County Township E&P Companies
- Belmont Richland Ascent
- Belmont Richland Ascent
- Carroll Harrison INR OH
- Carroll Harrison INR OH
- Columbiana Elk Run Hilcorp
- Columbiana Elk Run Hilcorp
- Columbiana Elk Run Hilcorp
- Columbiana Elk Run Hilcorp
WV Permits January 24, to January 28, 2022
- Harrison Arsenal
- Harrison Arsenal
- Harrison Arsenal
- Marshall Chevron
- Marshall Tug Hill
- Marshall Tug Hill
- Pleasants Jay-Bee O&G
