Gas prices are at $8.79/MMBtu. Rigs are at 763, up from 756 a month ago, but down four from the high. Gas storage is at 2,501 Bcfs, still hanging out near the five year lows.
Libya may begin producing at full capacity here soon, as the government has reached an agreement with the protesters.
In a royalties case involving EQT, the judge in the case has apparently gone off the deep end, waving a Colt 45 around and making a lot of other comments that are not, well, judicious. He also placed the gun on the bench and rotated it until it was pointing at EQT’s lawyer. I hesitate to post this as Judge Hummel seemed like a pretty decent person the two times I interacted with him, and I suspect there will be more to the story. Remember, this is EQT we’re dealing with here, and nobody likes EQT around here, for good reason. A judge has to show up and be the judge, but I can imagine EQT lawyers being really bad to him over a long time as well. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. One thing I’ve learned as an attorney is that there are always at least three sides to every story, and if more than two people are involved, the number just goes up. Last point, though, is that one of the first rules of gun safety (most gun safety lists make this rule number one or number two behind “always treat every gun as if it’s loaded”) is that you always keep a gun pointed in a safe direction. It should never be pointed at a person unless you intend to shoot them. That was a serious lapse in judgment, and if it happened, then something needs to be done.
UPDATE: A prosecutor reviewed footage of the incident and said he did not see any criminal actions. Judge Hummel displayed the pistol for a few seconds, but did not point it at anyone. There will be more news about this incident in the future.
This could be big news, bigger than a judge going off the deep end. An EQT well seems to have “communicated” with an abandoned gas well (this part’s not a huge surprise) and a water well in PA (this part is). Early in my career I had a few people call me telling me that fracking had destroyed their water wells, but the investigation never went anywhere. It was something that everyone thought could happen, but no one could ever find hard evidence of. This case seems to be the hard evidence. This could shake things up in the industry.
Joe Biden is in Saudi Arabia to talk energy. The U.S. President was told, essentially, that his energy policy is bad.
This article suggests that OPEC will not be able to balance supply and demand either in this year or next.
A 30,000 foot analysis of the production capacity of OPEC members and world demand.
Peace may be coming to Libya! The Prime Minister and the rebel leader are making friends. How long will it last? Who knows, but even a little less war is a good thing.
Hydrogen storage may become a thing in the future, and depleted natural gas formations are currently the cheapest option. Whether they are the overall best option remains to be seen. However, it’s important to note that some oil and gas leases may allow for the company to convert them over to storage agreements. If that’s the case, you may end up in a long-term agreement that doesn’t pay you much money. When negotiating an oil and gas lease, make sure it’s for the development of oil and gas only.
An engineering professor at WVU is developing a coating for power plant turbine blades that will allow hydrogen gas to be used on existing equipment.
And Libya is now exporting oil.
We all know polls can be, er, loose with the truth. The truth lies in how the questions are presented and how the results are interpreted. EQT recently paid for a poll that showed that a huge majority of voters across the country and in all political affiliations support natural gas. The interesting thing is, the polling company is the same polling company that Joe Biden uses. That’s some good political thinking. I still don’t like EQT’s treatment of mineral and royalty owners, but I’ll give them props for this move.
The Freeport LNG plant won’t return to service until October. Expect natural gas prices to stay high until then. Interestingly, the plant has a pretty poor safety record. We had been unaware of this until now.
Some West Virginia landowners have sued EQT and Diversified, claiming that EQT sold Diversified its collection of old wells just to avoid the plugging liability, and that Diversified has been cooking the books to make itself look solvent. In other words, EQT is avoiding liability by using a bankrupt company to hold liabilities. Whether that’s true or not, Diversified collecting so many old wells does set off alarm bells.
The United States became the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first half of this year. With Freeport down until October, we may lose that title for a while, but not for long, I suspect.
Diversified Energy has announced their acquisition of a third plugging company.
Joe Manchin reached some kind of agreement with Nancy Pelosi and has agreed to support the Inflation Reduction Act. Hopefully there’s something that will benefit the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the future, but the Act itself doesn’t.
The State of West Virginia has blacklisted five financial institutions that have policies against coal, natural gas pipelines, and other activities which the state relies on.
Word is coming out that part of Joe Manchin’s deal was that regulatory agencies would be a little more lenient on permitting, and that all litigation for the MVP would get moved to the D.C. circuit instead of the 4th circuit. We’re not sure what to think about this. There doesn’t seem to be anything solid here, yet. Manchin has enough political clout that a promise to him probably won’t be broken, but it’s hard to trust right now.
Just for fun, here’s a good article about hydrogen’s use in our energy industry and whether a hydrogen hub makes sense.
The cracker plant is up and running! All the producers are happy to hear that.
A 30-inch natural gas pipeline near Coolidge, AZ exploded, killing a father and daughter, and severely injuring the wife. Don’t let anyone tell you that pipelines are completely and totally safe.