Natural gas prices are at $2.82/MMBtu, down from a high of $2.98, but up from a low of $2.26.

Drilling rigs are at 584, down two from last month.

Gas storage is at 3,972 Bcf, which, while it’s a reduction in actual amount, is right at the top of the five-year average. It’s a good thing we’re getting into winter.

The demand for electricity is growing, and data centers are the main driver of that growing demand. Natural gas will provide the power for the generators, if pipelines can be built.

About 600 West Virginia homes will be forced to convert from using free gas to using electricity or propane by Hope Gas. Hope has been making some moves lately. This is one we’re not fans of. Anyone who is affected by this should refer back to the lease that created the free gas right and see what it actually says. Most of those leases probably allow the production company (Hope Gas in this case) to get out of providing free gas this way, but some won’t.

Diversified Energy has signed a deal to provide some unnamed gulf coast LNG company with natural gas to turn into LNG.

Construction costs for building new solar and wind installations went up last year, while costs for building new natural gas installations went down a lot. That just adds to the difference, as natural gas was cheaper to build to start with.

Natural gas produced from the Utica shale declined in the first nine months of 2024, probably due to wells being shut-in.

$44 million will go towards drilling and running two carbon capture wells in West Virginia’s northern panhandle.

Hope Gas is distributing WATT electrical “generators” to customers. If you haven’t read about them, these devices are one of the things that remind me that we’re living in the future.

The EIA published an article about some of the more important natural gas pipeline hubs. It’s worth the read if you’re wondering what a hub is and why it’s used for pricing natural gas.

U-shaped horizontal wells are a thing. They make it possible to develop tracts that otherwise would not be economical, and even in normal situations they are more economical and less disruptive to the surface than standard horizontals.

The U.S. is considering additional sanctions on Russian LNG production. We have to be careful, though, because additional sanctions would reduce supply in a market that is already tight.

Here’s Antero’s Q3 2024 report. I haven’t read it yet as it takes some time, but there’s always something interesting in there.

The PA cracker plant is being sued again over air quality.

Here’s an article that discusses what the Trump administration will probably bring in the way of changes towards energy policy. Not discussed is the LNG pause, or changes at the FERC that would allow for additional pipelines to be built out of the Marcellus shale region.

West Virginia’s Senator Shelley Moore Capito intends to get rid of a tax on methane emissions in the next Congressional session.

EQT and Diversified are going to pay $6.5 million and promise to double their efforts to plug abandoned wells as part of a lawsuit settlement.

Natural gas prices are at $2.50/MMBtu, down from a high of $2.97 about two weeks ago, but up from a low of $2.28 in September. Gas storage levels are at 3,705 Bcf, getting closer to the five-year average. Drilling rigs are at 586, down from 590 in September.

EQT spilled about 12,600 gallons of produced (fracked a well and returned to the surface) water. The PA DEP report (first hyperlink in the article) says about 20 gallons escaped secondary containment. As far as spills go, this was a good one. Little actual damage, and some experience that will hopefully improve policies and procedures so future spills can be avoided. This spill happened in Greene County, PA, not in WV, but the operations and geography in Greene County are identical to WV, so I thought this was pertinent to us.

Will you look at that! For years now I’ve been telling people that nobody develops coal bed methane (CBM) any more. But CNX is opening up a new headquarters in Virginia that will have 75 employees and they’ll be developing CBM! I didn’t think there was enough profit in CBM any more to make it a good investment. Looks like CNX thinks otherwise. Luckily I’ve been telling my clients to reserve the CBM from their oil and gas leases. If CNX wants to develop the CBM, and my oil and gas clients own the CBM (a very fact-dependent analysis in WV, so maybe they do maybe they don’t), CNX will have to ask them for new leases. Of course, this particular operation appears to be limited to southwestern Virginia, but you never know if they might expand.

Someone drove into the above-ground equipment of a natural gas pipeline in Deer Park, Texas, starting an enormous fire that killed the driver and triggered a shelter in place warning while officials determined whether the driver had been part of a terrorist plot. It seems like it wasn’t a terrorist plot, but it’s weird, that’s for sure.

Oil and gas development in West Virginia really should have lead to an economic boom in the state. It has, but not as much of one as it should have. There are certainly places that are better off today than they were before the Marcellus shale. Doddridge County has some nicer parks than it used to, for instance. But the state has really squandered what could have been a complete game changer. Here’s an article that digs into this subject a little bit.

RBNEnergy analyzes the summer natural gas market.

Chesapeake says their deal to buy SWN should close in Q4 2024.

Toby Rice, CEO of EQT, thinks natural gas prices will remain below $3/MMBtu in the near term and that the government needs to stop regulating oil and gas.

The EIA has reported that West Virginia natural gas has the highest heat content of any gas produced in the United States. This is good (more energy) unless you can’t separate out the natural gas liquids from the methane. In that case, the producer is leaving money on the table, and royalty owners are losing out on more royalties.

The LNG permitting pause is creating uncertainty in the natural gas market, and foreign buyers are turning to Russia for natural gas supply.

The U.S. produces a lot of natural gas, and we’re becoming more dependent on it for our electricity. This can be problematic during the winter, when extreme cold events can stop production from natural gas wells.

If you’ve ever wondered what capping an old well looks like, Jerry Rig Everything did a video about it. The video was shot out west somewhere, but the process is going to be similar here in West Virginia. Heads up, there is quite a bit of ad time for the sponsor of the video. My apologies, but the capping process is shown in good detail, so maybe just fast forward if the advertisement is too much for you.

Rysted thinks we’ll need 400 more LNG carriers to handle all the gas the U.S. produces. I may be working in the wrong end of the industry.

A couple weeks ago, much of Libya’s oil production got shut down due to politics. The reasons behind the turmoil in the country are complex, and if you want to read about it in some depth, this is a good article for you.

The Martins Ferry frack waste storage facility that was not being properly operated is being cleaned up, with Phase 1 complete.

AI data centers are desperate for energy, and the power grid is taking too long to provide it, so data centers are looking into getting gas piped to their locations and generating the electricity on site.

EQT will begin to “ease curtailments” in October.

Here’s the story of the first ever horizontally fracked Marcellus shale well. I’d only ever known the date, so a few more details were welcome.

Chesapeake and Southwestern have merged. They are calling the new company Expand Energy. So if you have a lease with or are being paid royalties by SWN, sometime in the near future you’re going to be seeing a new name on the paperwork.

The legislature is deciding whether to give the State Health Department some control over low-level radioactive waste, presumably so that it can be processed in-state.

The LNG permitting pause was supposedly done to give the Feds time to conduct a study on the environmental effects of LNG production. A FOIA request has turned up evidence that that study was well underway in the year before the pause was announced.

Here are the results of a survey of oil and gas executives regarding the future price of natural gas. You’ll notice that they’re all over the place, in spite of these people being the most informed and most concerned about the price of gas. It’s literally impossible to predict the long-term price of gas. The best we can do is analyze and watch.

The EIA is predicting that natural gas prices will rise in 2025, brought on by reduced production this year (2024) and increased demand.

The price of natural gas is $2.31/MMBtu, which is decent compared to where it’s been the last couple of months. Drilling rigs are at 590, up from 586 last month. It’s not a steep increase, but it’s going the right direction. Gas storage levels are at 3,387 Bcf, up from last month, of course, but still trending closer to the five-year average.

Diversified Energy has acquired more oil and gas wells, these in East Texas.

A Federal court has invalidated five new pipeline standards created by the PHMSA.

People often ask me if a President can stop development of their minerals. They can’t in West Virginia, but they can limit pipelines by blocking permits to build them.

The ARCH 2 Hydrogen Hub now has a headquarters in Morgantown.

Senator Manchin’s permitting bill has cleared the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, but seems unlikely to get a vote this year.

One of Jay-Bee Energy’s well pads caught fire. Thankfully there were no injuries.

The EPA is on the hook for cleaning up a wastewater treatment facility in Fairmont, WV. The facility went bankrupt, so someone had to step in and do it. The EPA did not meet its own timetable or budget for doing so, and has given itself more time and money to do so.

A Range Resources above-ground water pipeline burst, doing a little bit of property damage. No people or animals were harmed. This is the first time I’ve heard of one of the above-ground pipes bursting. This one burst because they had sent a PIG (pipeline inspection gauge) down the pipe, either to clean or inspect it, and it got stuck.

Jay-Bee Energy got sued for improperly deducting post-production costs, and has decided to settle for $42 million. Anyone who has a producing lease with Jay-Bee should reach out to them.

West Virginia is giving $10 million to Babcock and Wilcox, which plans to build a $125 million “hydrogen related facility”.

When they tested the MVP earlier this year, one part of it burst. The study to determine why it burst has been completed by a third party, and they determined that the weakness was a defective weld.

Freeport LNG went back offline again, due to a fire suppression system triggering during routine maintenance. It should just be temporary.

Winter gas price predictions are coming! This is the first real one I’ve seen, and it quotes a Bank of America exec as saying that winter demand is not going to be enough to strengthen natural gas prices. As always, take predictions with many, many grains of salt. Natural gas usage depends heavily on weather, and nobody can predict the weather.

Chevron has successfully run a gas turbine on 60% hydrogen, 40% natural gas.

Oil prices falling mean that OPEC nations make less money, and it looks like Saudi Arabia is going to have an unbalanced budget.

Here’s some analysis of green hydrogen and the hurdles that it faces.

Here’s an interview with Toby Rice, the CEO of EQT. I’m not a fan of EQT and their effects on oil and gas law in West Virginia, but Mr. Rice is part of the new guard and doing an excellent job of pushing for more widespread use of natural gas throughout the world, and you can learn a thing or two from this interview.

First, my apologies to those who watch for this post. I’ve been changing up my schedule and had to put off finishing this post for a few days.

The following numbers are from August 15, 2024. Natural gas prices are at $2.20, up from a low of $1.91 about two weeks ago. Drilling rigs are at 586, up two from last month. Gas storage is at 3,264 Bcf, which is just below the five year high. The hot summer has helped with the gas storage oversupply.

The Freeport LNG plant has been down since July 7 because of Hurricane Beryl. Eleven days later, and it’s still not operational, in part because the port is not operational. Update: it finally started operation on July 22. Update: only one train is fully operational, the others won’t be until early August. Final Update: Freeport LNG is fully operational, three weeks later.

The Ninth Circuit has sent approval of an LNG project back to the FERC, requesting it to look at greenhouse gas emissions and the cumulative effects analysis.

The MVP is still working on reclamation and remediation, and has had 35 instances of sediment leaving the right of way in the last month.

Here’s an update on that fracking waste storage facility in Martins Ferry. And another, which says that the ODNR is stepping in to clean up the facility, and the owner will be able to avoid a 30-day jail sentence if he posts an additional $1.2 million bond. Update: he paid $25,000 for a bond.

The mayor of Chicago was trying to pass an ordinance making new natural gas hookups in the city illegal. Thirty-one out of fifty aldermen (essentially city council members) opposed it. Similarly, Vancouver, BC reversed a ban on natural gas in new homes.

Here’s a quick analysis of natural gas prices.

The FTC is looking into oil and gas company executives’ text records to see if they’ve been colluding with OPEC.

Senator’s Manchin and Barrasso have introduced legislation that will streamline energy project approval. Here’s another article discussing the bill.

EQT now owns Equitrans, which is part owner of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and makes EQT a fully vertically integrated company.

In EQT’s 2Q Earnings Call, they note that they’re keeping the MVP (had previously hinted that they intended to sell it), may bump it up to 2.5 Bcf/day (is 2.0 now, was advertised as 1.5 when announced), and are selling off a lot of their acreage that they don’t operate. I haven’t read the whole thing, so there are probably some other tasty tidbits I haven’t run acrross.

The amount of natural gas injected into storage this year is 15% below the average, but total natural gas in storage is still above the five-year average. We just didn’t use as much natural gas last winter as we usually do, not even close. That’s keeping the price of natural gas down.

In CNX’s 2Q Earnings Call, they discuss that they are creating CNG (compressed natural gas) at the wellpad without using compressors. They use geobaric energy, which seems to have something to do with a difference in temperature, probably between the produced gas and the ambient air, but they don’t go into details. It’s interesting, to say the least.

Virginia has fined the Mountain Valley Pipeline another $30,500 for environmental violations.

Two companies are arguing over who gets to supply natural gas to a new West Virginia hydrogen plant, whenever it gets built.

Dirty natural gas destroyed heating equipment at Fairmont State University, and there’s a lawsuit which will determine who is at fault for delivering them the bad gas.

RBNEnergy did an article about AI and how it’s demand for energy is affecting natural gas markets.

The MVP has added takeaway capacity to West Virginia natural gas fields, and will continue to increase capacity in the future.

In spite of questions over tax breaks, the hydrogen hub is moving forward, evidenced by an agreement reached at the end of July 2024. EQT put out a separate announcement has other details.

Natural gas production from West Virginia increased 9.5% in one month due to the Mountain Valley Pipeline going into service.

The Sharara field in Libya has shut down, taking 270,000 barrels per day of oil out of production. That’s not an enormous hit to world supply, but it’s not small.

The oil and gas production industry is cutting costs and becoming more efficient, which is good news for operators in a low-price environment.

Hog Lick, an aggregates company based in Fairmont, WV, is beginning work on the ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub.

The EIA published an article that predicts that natural gas production will balance out with natural gas demand soon, and that by the end of storage season we won’t be quite as much above the five-year average as we have been. This is not bad news. The article dives pretty deep into natural gas storage, so if you’re a newbie to this area, it’s worth the read.

Natural gas prices in Texas have gone negative 18 times this year. It’s hard to compete with those kinds of prices.

The EIA predicts that oil demand will continue to rise for the next couple of years. OPEC has cut its demand prediction, but they still say demand will continue to rise.

CNX has released data from a ongoing project to measure pollution from wellsites. Their conclusion is that natural gas production is safe and clean. Environmental organizations dispute this conclusion, of course. Time will tell which is true.

I’m on vacation, which is why this post is two days late, so we’ll just be hitting highlights this time.

Gas prices have taken another nosedive and are at $2.19/MMBtu. Drilling rigs are at 584, having hit a low of 581 a couple weeks ago. Natural gas storage is at 3,199 Tcf, getting down close to the five-year average high.

The EPA has announced $850 million are available for reducing methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. That’s a real chunk of change.

Russia is making 50% more money from energy this year than it did last year.

Argent LNG is leasing property in preparation for a new LNG plant in Louisiana.

Texas produces so much natural gas that prices have gone negative in that area despite the recent heat wave.

The International Gas Union (IGU) released a report on international LNG, which essentially says supply is just a little higher than demand, but not high enough to be considered a comfortable cushion.

The Biden LNG approval pause has been paused by a Federal Court.

Hurricane Beryl and international instability have pushed oil prices higher.

As expected, natural gas production from the Marcellus/Utica area has increased with the Mountain Valley Pipeline going into operation.

Regardless of where you fall on the global warming argument spectrum, the fact that a company has been able to capture all (100%) of the carbon from a natural gas power plant is pretty impressive.

There’s a great article over at Hart Energy about refracing, but it’s behind a soft paywall. You only get a certain amount of free articles from them before you have to pay.

Natural gas prices are at $2.88/MMBtu, a health price relatively speaking. If we get hot weather this summer it will keep prices high. Rig counts continue to drop, hitting 590, down another 14 since last month. Gas storage is at 2,974 Bcf, getting closer to the five year high, but still significantly above it.

The fracking waste disposal site in Martins Ferry that’s overloaded with waste is simply not working with anybody to fix the problem.

The Freeport LNG plant is back online. Interestingly, natural gas prices are going back up.

In spite of the low price of natural gas, E&P companies are doing well.

A protester locked himself to two barrels in an attempt to slow down the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Pressure testing on the MVP has found 70 flaws, 15 of which will require cutouts.

Demand is up, production is down, so gas prices are climbing. Also in the article, EQT will open up shut-in wells when prices are “sustainably” above $1.50/MMBtu.

Senator John Barasso and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers have encouraged the FERC to process applications for LNG projects in a timely and fair manner.

The eminent domain challenge that was denied at the D.C. circuit court will not be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s too bad, eminent domain has been interpreted too broadly by the courts, and really needs to be reigned back.

Chesapeake fired 80 workers, about 10% of its workforce.

The MVP has pushed its start date back to June.

The storage surplus should get a little smaller. By the time this post is published, we’ll know for sure whether that’s the case.

Another protester has been arrested, this one for suspending herself from a tripod above an access road. They’re pretty creative.

EQT has opened up wells that it shut-in back in February.

Here’s an analysis of Russia’s relationship with OPEC.

The FERC now has a full slate of committee members.

The U.S. may be on track for a flat year-over-year oil production number. If U.S. oil production does remain flat, that will be a benefit to OPEC+.

LNG exports continue to rise.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is ready to begin operations

People are already angry about the ARCH2 hydrogen project.

The MVP has been given permission to begin operations.

And the MVP has begun operations.

Natural gas prices are at $2.39/MMBtu, a significant jump up from the low prices of the last few months. Drilling rigs are at 603, down from 619. Gas storage is at 2,563 Bcf, well above the five year maximum.

Natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica region is slowing while production in the Permian Basin is increasing, a result of the low price of natural gas and the relatively high price of oil, which the respective regions specialize in.

Natural gas exports hit an all-time high last year.

Charlie Burd, President of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, sat down and talked with Curtis Tate from WV Public Broadcasting. There’s very little earth-shattering info here, but it’s probably worth a quick read. He does dance around the question of why WV doesn’t have more natural gas fired power plants, which he has to do for politics’ sake. I don’t blame him for not taking a stronger stance on it. I’ll take that stance, though. Coal interests don’t want natural gas to have any more influence in West Virginia than it already does. Coal is dying, but the old guard is holding on to its influence as long and as hard as it can.

Produced water from Marcellus shale fracking operations could become a good source of lithium, a necessary component of many rechargeable batteries.

Another protester slowed down MVP construction, this one locking herself to an excavator.

The MVP is requesting a startup date of May 23, 2024. Update: the date is now May 31, 2024, or thereabouts.

EQT has entered into an agreement to sell 2.0 MTPA of natural gas to Texas LNG Brownsville, which will be liquefying 4.0 MTPA of natural gas starting in 2028.

I’m not what you could call an environmentalist, but this kind of news is still exciting to me because a clean environment is a healthy environment. The article notes that the majority of the decrease in emissions was due to a switch from coal to natural gas.

Use of natural gas went up 4% last year, and use of natural gas for producing electricity went up 7% last year. More and more of the country is putting natural gas to use for making electricity, but we in West Virginia still don’t have a natural gas fired power plant. I already mentioned that this month, but it’s just ridiculous. Politics…..

The Freeport LNG plant is back in operation, at least partially.

EQT CEO Toby Rice says the natural gas market is oversupplied, but demand is coming in the form of electricity needed to power AI.

That frack waste location in Martins Ferry that hit the news last month for storing way too much fracking waste has a long track record of financial problems and safety and environmental violations, laid off all its workers back in March, and says it doesn’t have the money to clean up its mess.

West Virginia politicians will challenge the EPA’s new power plant emissions rules.

The current problem with using hydrogen as an energy source is that no one is using it. However, if hydrogen were plentiful and cheap, use would go up. The following linked proposal could make hydrogen plentiful and cheap, as it would turn natural gas wells into hydrogen wells. Kinda wild, but really cool!

Well, well, well, someone’s finally going to build a natural gas fired power plant in West Virginia! In Doddridge County, no less. Makes a ton of sense! I do wonder where they’re going to get the water to cool the plant, though. The little river running through Blandville doesn’t look like it would supply enough.

Antero is producing 5% more gas than it did a year ago, which is the opposite of what a lot of other companies are currently doing. Antero is also making a lot less profit than it did a year ago, of course.

The U.S. government is throwing $392 million in grant money at the problem of aging natural gas pipeline infrastructure. It’s good that this is getting done, but I don’t know why the federal government should be paying for this, the pipeline companies should. They’ve been making money off the pipelines for decades, they should have stashed some of it away for upgrades and replacements.

A portion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline burst during hydrostatic pressure testing. This will probably set the start date back a bit.

Bloomberg says the expected global gas glut is not coming as soon as expected due to the U.S. not building out LNG facilities quite as quickly as was expected. We have a gas glut here, so prices are down here, but the rest of the world is not that way.

Like EQT’s CEO, Chevron’s CEO is talking about an upcoming increase in demand for natural gas due to data centers needed for AI.

Hope Gas is expanding again, buying Consumer’s Gas, which provides gas to 8,500 customers in the western part of West Virginia.

A company named Zefiro is putting a site in our own little town of Buckhannon, WV. Zefiro plugs abandoned wells and sells carbon credits.

Some landowners have filed a lawsuit against Tug Hill and EQT, alleging that the companies covertly deducted post-production costs by using a third party purchaser who paid the post-production costs and bought the gas at a reduced price to cover the expense. It’s the oldest scam in the book for oil and gas companies.

MVP got 13 slap-on-the-wrist fines.

Twenty-seven state have filed suit against the Biden Administration, in opposition to the new EPA power plant emissions rule.

Donald Trump would reverse the environmental regulations created by the Biden Administration. In fact, he promised oil and gas executives that if they would raise $1 billion for his campaign, he would do that on day one of his next presidency. I know politics works that way, but to put it that bluntly makes it seem like he can be bought.

An eminent domain property valuation case against the Mountain Valley Pipeline has been decided in favor of the landowners. The court upheld a value of over $500,000 for a little over eight acres of pipeline easement on a 560 acre tract. The value must include the diminished value of the adjacent property, because eight rural acres won’t go for over half a million dollars.

The U.S. government is giving the State of West Virginia $29.2 million to plug around 200 orphaned wells. This is a good thing. I just wish the people who had drilled those wells had plugged them, it shouldn’t be the government doing this.

Natural gas prices are $1.69/MMBtu, having hit a high of $1.89 and a low of $1.58. Gas in storage is at 2,283 Bcf, still well above the five year average, but better than it was a month ago. Drilling rigs are at 621, having gone up to as high as 629. We’ve been moving mostly sideways on rig counts since about October of last year.

Some protesters spent about 36 hours inside the Mountain Valley Pipeline. That’s a view that very few people will ever get.

The economy as a whole is benefitting from lower natural gas prices, even though it’s not good for producers or royalty owners.

Electricity burn from AI is a growth sector for natural gas, particularly in Appalachia.

The House has passed legislation that would affect some of the Biden Administration’s environmental policies. It’s unlikely to even advance to the Senate, however.

The Saudis’ long-term plan includes a 60% increase in natural gas production.

The PA cracker plant has been operating under a construction permit for air quality purposes. It has been notified that it will have to apply for a regular permit within 120 days.

Freeport LNG is shutting down trains for maintenance and inspection.

Sixteen states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over the LNG export approval pause.

Some smart people up at WVU are working on how to make hydrogen less expensive. Not that there are a lot of uses for hydrogen as a fuel right now, but if the price comes down enough, maybe people will start adopting it.

A lawsuit against the Mountain Valley Pipeline is being appealed to the Supreme Court. This is the one that challenges the eminent domain power, and I’m all for that challenge. Eminent domain has been abused.

MVP is also being cited for environmental violations. I’m all for the pipeline, but dang if the builders didn’t mess just about everything up. There are good ways to do things, and bad ways to do things, and MVP has done just about everything badly from the beginning.

This article notes that Jim Justice vetoed a bill that would have made larger solar farms even cheaper in West Virginia. It’s not directly oil and gas related, but the same thing has happened with natural gas fired power plants. Jim Justice is a coal man, and has hamstrung the natural gas industry in order to protect his coal interests. This is bad for West Virginia.

The legal challenge against West Virginia’s forced pooling law has been dismissed, the judge stating that the plaintiffs had not shown standing, which essentially means they hadn’t been affected by the law in any way. We know of one attorney (not us) that wants to challenge the forced pooling law. If you have been affected by the forced pooling law and want to challenge it, give us a call and we’ll put you in touch with him. 304-473-1403.

This is….not great. The small town of Martin’s Ferry on the Ohio side of the river now has a hazardous materials mess on its hands. The hazardous materials are said to consist of waste from the fracking process, though I suspect that what they really mean is waste from the drilling process as it sounds like the waste is solid, not liquid. The article goes into some detail about the City Council meeting, but there’s enough detail about the actual situation to see that it’s bad. Somebody needs to clean it up. Hopefully the company that brought the hazardous materials to the site will take care of it, but when they’re the ones that caused it in the first place, it seems unlikely.

Chesapeake Energy will put about 80 wells into “suspended animation” this year. None seem to be in West Virginia, but this kind of thing is happening throughout the industry. It’s necessary, but will temporarily reduce or delay royalty payments.

Jerry Jones has doubled down on his investment in natural gas by buying an additional $100 million in stock in Comstock. Long-term, natural gas prices will come back.

The U.S. beat out Australia and Qatar in 2023 as the world’s largest LNG exporter. It wouldn’t take much for the U.S. to decisively take that top spot, but there’s this “pause” going on at the moment. Also, Freeport just can’t seem to operate continuously for an entire year.

Mountain V Oil and Gas is a West Virginia company based here in Buckhannon. They’ve acquired the assets of AXP Energy in the Appalachian region.

Someone did a deep dive on investing in natural gas over on Seeking Alpha, and decided that investing in companies that are working in the Marcellus/Utica area is the best bet at the moment.

OPEC+ has increased production cuts, resulting in higher oil prices, resulting in higher prices at the pump.

Marcellus/Utica production is down, and natural gas prices are up. Well, relatively up.

Here’s a report that says increased LNG exports do not affect the domestic price of natural gas. Now, I’m sure that’s true to some extent, but I guarantee that if exports were completely cut off, natural gas prices would tank even farther than they are now, and stay much lower on average. That said, the data is compelling, and the real driver of domestic natural gas prices, based off my personal observation of the industry, has bounced back and forth between weather and production.

Iraq produced more oil than its OPEC+ quota allowed for, as usual.

The Biden Administration’s LNG export pause could be used as a bargaining chip to get House Republicans to approve a Ukraine aid deal. I did not expect that.

The price of natural gas is down, but it won’t be too much longer before it starts to go back up.

The ridiculously low price of natural gas is incentivizing producers who have a lot of associated gas (natural gas that comes out of oil wells) to not produce as much oil as the current price of oil would otherwise dictate.

West Virginia has banned four more banks from getting state contracts because of the banks’ stance on using oil and gas.

Two more people blocked MVP work, this time in a giant wooden opossum.

Natural gas prices are at $1.66/MMBtu, having hit a high of $1.96 and a low of $1.58. Prices are low. Gas storage is at 2,325 Tcf, well above the five year average. Drilling rigs are at 629, up a little from last month.

The eminent domain challenge against the MVP has again been struck down by the 4th Circuit. The landowners plan to appeal again to the Supreme Court.

The saga of the West Virginia oil and gas tax debacle goes on. Update: We’re stuck with this law for another year.

The MVP is expected to be in service on June 1, 2024, in spite of recent delays due to weather.

Natural gas prices were ridiculously low for about two weeks of February. Then CHK, Antero, EQT, and Comstock all announced they were going to cut the amount of gas produced this year, and prices began to recover. Guess we were oversupplied. Here’s EQT’s official statement.

It seems that the Biden Administration’s 45V regulation may block all of the hydrogen hubs that the Biden Administration recently announced funding for.

A lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s pause in LNG permits is pending. It will be similar to the lawsuit against the pause in leasing a few years ago, as the FERC is supposed to allow permitting unless there’s been a clear finding that the shipments aren’t in the public’s best interest. That lawsuit was successful.

The State of West Virginia doesn’t do business with a few banks because of their stance on oil and gas issues. The State Treasurer warned a few more that they were at risk of losing the state’s business if they don’t change their policies.

Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, notes that the LNG pause will last months, and a different Biden advisor said it would be 10-14 months. That’s a long time.

Three people have been nominated to take positions at FERC.

The EPA has delayed finalizing carbon standards for power plants until after the election.

OPEC+ intends to extend its production cuts until after 2Q24.

Protesters blocked construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline again.

An Ohio jury has decided that the Utica shale formation includes the Point Pleasant formation. Not being a geologist, I don’t have an informed opinion about this part of it. As a lawyer, if you want to reserve back the Point Pleasant for some reason, you’ll want to specify that that’s what you want, just to be safe, even in West Virginia. Look closely at, and be sure you understand, any formation limit language that you get in your lease.

An oilfield services company, Heavy Iron, moved from Washington, PA to Chester, WV. Chester is the very northern tip of the northern panhandle.

EQT has agreed to buy Equitrans (which used to be part of EQT) for $5.5 billion in stock, giving EQT control of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The West Virginia Surface Owner’s Rights Organization (WVSORO) is recommending that people not sign leases for pore space. We heartily agree, and not just because we like the people over at WVSORO. Just like oil and gas leases, pore space leases are written by the company and for the company. Make sure to read and understand anything an energy company asks you to sign. Get legal representation. You won’t be sorry you did.

Gas storage analysts think we’re going to have too much gas in storage. Surprise? No. Not at this point.

OPEC+ said they were going to continue with production cuts, but analysts say they’ve increased production.

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.