Natural gas prices are at $1.58/MMBtu, prices we haven’t seen since COVID. One month ago they were at about $3.00, and the crash has been pretty consistent. If prices stay this low for long, watch for somebody to start shutting in wells. Storage is at 2,535 Bcf, well above the five year average. Drilling rigs are at 621, one more than last month.
A local news outlet, WVNews in Clarksburg, has published an article that discusses the potential benefits that a natural gas power plant located here in West Virginia would have.
Libya has re-opened the Al Sharara field, the one that was closed down a couple weeks ago by protesters. That’s 300,000 barrels of oil per day back on the market. That will probably bump the price of gas at the pump down a bit.
West Virginia does not have enough well inspectors or enough money to plug abandoned wells.
The Biden Administration has paused approvals of new LNG export facilities.
West Virginia property taxes on oil and gas production are, once again, in the news for bad reasons. Somebody miscalculated the amount of tax that was supposed to be collected, and eight WV counties are short millions of dollars. Tyler County is particularly hard hit, being short almost $16 million. Nobody at the State level seems to have a solution.
The largest cruise ship ever just set sail from Miami, FL, under the power of LNG. Of course, environmentalists say it could actually be worse for the environment, even though it’s far better than the previous technology. Some people just can’t be happy.
OPEC+ intends to keep oil production at its current level in order to keep the price up.
Another protester locked themselves to some equipment to delay construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
So, there is a little rumbling about a West Virginia Senate Bill (SB 358) that would prohibit State employees from enforcing federal EPA regulations. While it’s a good idea, it’s unlikely to be effective, as the Feds have a unique tool that gives them a lot of leverage–money. West Virginia gets a lot of money from the federal government, and most of it is earmarked in such a way that the State has to use it in specific ways, and conform to federal regulations, in order to get the money. When States start feeling uppity, the Feds just start playing around with the requirements for this money. This law is unlikely to go anywhere.
One of Freeport LNG’s liquefaction trains is offline for about a month. That will not help the current oversupply situation.
How the G-7’s price cap on Russian oil is affecting things.
A gas pipeline in Oklahoma exploded, causing damage to some property, but not causing any injuries or deaths.
The PA cracker plant isn’t fully up and running. I probably knew this at one point. What I didn’t know is that Shell doesn’t expect it to be fully operational until 2025 or even 2026. You’ll have to search Shell’s earnings call transcript to find these nuggets.
The legal challenge against West Virginia’s forced pooling law is still ongoing, having been bounced around the Federal court system. The 4th Circuit has decided that the Federal circuit should make a ruling instead of moving the case to State court. So now we’ll wait while Judge Bailey decides whether the plaintiffs have standing.
West Virginia is being hurt by the Biden Administration’s LNG pause. Apparently, pretty much everybody agrees.
TC Energy is building a new building in Charleston, WV. Charleston could really use a nice, new building.
Harvard scientists are studying how cracks form and propagate. This will be useful in fracking and seismology.
A bill that would result in plugging orphaned oil and gas wells, and would keep new wells from ending up orphaned, has been in the legislature for six years, and doesn’t show signs of getting addressed any time soon.
Some folks in Virginia are saying that MVP construction is muddying the waters of their springs.
A company named Tenaska is working to sequester CO2 in the Marcellus shale region. They’ll be working in Hancock County, WV, as well as Ohio and PA. They will be asking for “leases” on the rock. This may not go to mineral rights owners, and the mineral rights owners only own the oil and gas, not the vacant space between rocks. This will probably go to surface owners.