Facts & Rumors # 557
June 22, 2024
U.S. Shale Output to Grow for Years. U.S. shale oil output to grow for years before peaking, HSBC says. Bloomberg. US shale drillers will continue to raise oil production for years before the juggernaut stalls around 2028, dashing OPEC+ hopes for a quicker fall-off in American output growth, according to HSBC Holdings Plc. Improvements in drilling and fracking techniques amid a wave of corporate takeovers will drive the expansion and more than offset recent reductions in rig deployments, analysts at the London-based bank wrote in a note titled ‘Underestimate US Shale at Your Peril.
TX Producing at Record Levels Due to Heat Wave. Texas producing fossil fuels at record levels amid heat wave. The Hill. At the brink of what may be the hottest summer on record, the Texas oil and gas industry is pumping out planet-heating fuels at record levels, a new report has found. Estimates from the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) released Monday found the state dumped out a record 5.7 million barrels per day of crude oil in May, and it sold a record 32 billion cubic feet of gas. The EIA found that Texas produced 28.2 billion cubic feet of methane gas per day in March — less than half of which was used by the state’s consumers.
TXOGA analysis highlights Texas energy records through May. Odessa American. Texas’ production of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), refinery activity and exports have achieved new record highs, according to the most recent monthly energy economic analysis by Texas Oil & Gas Association (TXOGA) Chief Economist Dean Foreman. By TXOGA’s estimates for May 2024, Texas produced a record-high 5.7 mb/d of crude oil, plus 32.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of natural gas marketed production and 3.5 mb/d of NGLs.
Chesapeake COO Bullish on Exploration. Chesapeake COO: Shale gas basins see exploration, step-out activity. Hart Energy. Natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy, though wading through a prolonged downcycle of low commodity prices, sees upside on the horizon. Growing domestic gas demand to fuel U.S. LNG exports and artificial intelligence (AI) data center consumption are two factors driving Chesapeake’s bullish outlook, Executive Vice President and COO Josh Viets said during the 2024 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) in Houston.
Traders Bullish European NatGas Prices. Traders boost their bullish bets on European natural gas prices. Oilprice. Portfolio managers raised their bullish bets on Europe’s natural gas prices for a second consecutive week, lifting the number of longs close to the highest in more than two years. The long positions in the Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, increased again in the past week, and are now near the level from January 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange cited by Bloomberg on Wednesday. Hedge funds and other money managers continue to be concerned about Europe’s gas supply in the near term, despite comfortable levels of natural gas in EU storage sites.
Biden Again Playing Politics with SPR. Biden ready to reopen U.S. oil stockpile if petrol prices surge again. Financial Times. The Biden administration is ready to release more oil from its strategic stockpile to halt any jump in petrol prices this summer, as the White House battles to contain inflation ahead of the November election. Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s closest adviser on energy, said that prices at the pump were “still too high for many Americans” and he would like to see them “cut down a little bit further”. Washington Examiner also reports.
PA/NY Pipeline to Proceed. U.S. appeals court allows oil pipeline in New York and Pennsylvania to proceed despite environmental concerns. Jurist. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled on Friday that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) adequately evaluated emission impacts when it approved a gas pipeline expansion in Pennsylvania and New York, allowing the project to move forward. The environmental group Food & Water Watch argued that the FERC did not properly assess the pipeline’s impact on ozone pollution.
46% of EV Owners Going Back to Gas. 46% of American EV drivers want to go back to gas cars — report. E&E News. Americans who buy the most electric vehicles, youth, are the most likely to be dissatisfied with the decision and want to go back to gasoline-burning cars, according to a new report. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. also found that almost half of U.S. EV drivers want to return to using traditional cars with combustion engines because of factors like lack of charging infrastructure. The findings are’’a warning sign of the direction of travel,” said report author Philipp Kampshoff, a leading mobility analyst at McKinsey who is based in Houston.
NatGas Powering for the Cooling Season. Up 6% Versus Last Year. US power system cranks up gas output as cooling season kicks off. Reuters. Natural gas-fired power generation in the United States has climbed nearly 6% through June 17 from the same period a year ago, as above-normal temperatures lifted use of power-hungry air conditioners. U.S. power generation from natural gas from Jan. 1 through June 17 was just over 30 million megawatt hours (MWh), according to data compiled by LSEG. That total compares to 28.4 million MWh during the same period in 2023, and is the highest gas output reading since at least 2021, LSEG data shows.
Biden Is Driving Europeans to Purchase Russian NatGas. Russia has overtaken the United States as the top exporter of natural gas to Europe despite the continent trying to break its reliance on Russian energy in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cut his country’s supply of gas to Europe following his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the continent responded by importing liquified natural gas (LNG) from the U.S.
“The US overtook Russia as a supplier of gas to Europe in September 2022, and has since 2023 accounted for about a fifth of the region’s supply,” The Financial Times reported. “But last month, Russian-piped gas and LNG shipments accounted for 15 per cent of total supply to the EU, UK, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, according to data from ICIS.”
U.S. shipments of natural gas to Europe have since fallen to 14% of the region’s supply, the report said, which comes despite efforts from several European nations to sanction Russian energy, which would reduce Russia’s ability to continue funding its war through energy sales.
Experts claimed to the newspaper that “one-off factors drove the reversal,” including an outage at a major U.S. natural gas export facility.
However, the outage comes after President Joe Biden halted issuing new licenses for natural gas exporters, which has forced companies to delay signing new contracts with U.S. energy producers, Bloomberg News reported.
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) responded to the development by telling The Daily Wire in a statement: “The Biden Administration’s decision to pause approvals for new LNG export terminals has once again forced Europe into the pockets of Putin.”
“His decisions not only counter his climate goals, since Russian natural gas is 41% dirtier than American, but harms our domestic producers,” she added. “When it comes to Russia, Biden talks the talk, but his actions are doing nothing but supporting Putin.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also responded to the news during the most recent episode of his “Verdict” podcast this week, saying that Biden and the Democrats “are united in favor of this policy.”
“They are helping Russia. They are hurting our allies, they are hurting Europe, and they’re hurting jobs in Texas, and hurting jobs in America,” he said, later adding: “Joe Biden and the Democrats have this incoherent view that they hate oil and gas produced in America, which, by the way, produces jobs, raises wages here in the United States, but they seemingly love oil and gas produced by our enemies. They love Russian oil and gas. They love Iranian oil and gas. They love Venezuelan oil and gas.”
“Joe Biden is halting the sale of American natural gas to Europe, which means the Europeans are buying them from Vladimir Putin,” he continued. “The Democrats are literally funding Russia in the war against Ukraine. It is incoherent and it’s indefensible.”
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PA Impact Fee Fall $99 Million. Thanks, MDN. There’s no way to sugarcoat bad news. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) predicted in January that money raised by the shale impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) would plummet this year (see PA PUC Publishes Fee Schedule for Marcellus Impact Fee/Tax 2023). And indeed, plummet it did — not quite as much as the original prediction, but bad enough. The state raised and is in the process of distributing $179.6 million based on 2023 activity. That’s down just over $99 million from a record-high $278.9 million raised and distributed last year from 2022.
Declining Flaring and Venting Rates. EIA estimates declined rates of flaring, venting NatGas in 2023. Hart Energy. The U.S. petrochemical industry cut the rate of natural gas lost to flaring and venting in 2023 over 2022, according to an early estimate released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on June 20. “We estimate this percentage will be the lowest rate of venting and flaring recorded in 18 years,” the EIA published on its website. The agency will publish updated and final results in September.
PA Permits June 10, to June 20, 2024
County Township E&P Companies
1. Bradford Albany Chesapeake
2. Bradford Albany Chesapeake
3. Bradford Albany Chesapeake
4. Bradford Albany Chesapeake
5. Bradford Albany Chesapeake
6. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
7. Bradford Wyalusing Chesapeake
8. Greene Springhill Rice
9. Greene Springhill Rice
10. Tioga Middlebury Seneca
11. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
12. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
13. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
14. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
15. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
16. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
17. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
18. Tioga Sullivan Seneca
19. Washington West Bethlehem EQT
20. Washington West Finley CNX
21. Washington West Finley CNX
22. Washington West Finley CNX
23. Washington West Finley CNX
24. Washington West Finley CNX
OH Permits June 9, to June 15, 2024
County Township E&P Companies
1. Harrison Freeport EOG
2. Harrison Freeport EOG
3. Harrison Freeport EOG
WV Permits June 10, to June 14, 2024
1. Doddridge Antero
2. Doddridge Antero
3. Doddridge Antero
4. Doddridge Antero
5. Doddridge Antero
6. Doddridge Antero
7. Doddridge Antero
8. Pleasants Jay-Bee O&G
9. Pleasants Jay-Bee O&G
10. Pleasants Jay-Bee O&G
11. Tyler Jay-Bee O&G
12. Tyler Jay-Bee O&G
13. Tyler Jay-Bee O&G
