Natural gas is at $3.13/MMBtu after reaching a high of $4.69/MMBtu on December 29.
Drilling rigs are at 543, up one from last month.
Gas storage is at 3,185 Bcf, just above last year’s 3,152 Bcf and above the five-year average.
Wetzel Count lost a tax valuation case against a MarkWest pipeline. West Virginia code allows for a reduction in tax value for specialized property if it’s economically obsolete. The gas pipeline was being significantly underutilized, and so MarkWest argued that it was economically obsolete and appealed the value placed on it by the County. MarkWest won, and the County appealed twice and lost. I suspect that if the pipeline becomes fully utilized in the future that the County could place a higher value on the pipeline once again.
An EOG oil well in Carroll County, OH that was being fracked exploded and burned for about 15 minutes. It was probably a Marcellus Shale well, as the Marcellus produces more oil when you get more to the north and west of West Virginia. Thankfully no one was injured.
Hope Gas has installed its first WATT Fuel Cell in West Virginia, at the Edward M. Smith National Career and Life Skills Development Center in Clarksburg. Hope Gas intends to begin installing fuel cells in private homes in January 2026.
The oil and gas industry is starting to think more about increasing recovery rates from fracked wells. A typical well currently only recovers about 10% of the product that’s in the formation. Doubling that would double the amount of energy recovered from the well, and double people’s royalties. While this sounds good, I remember reading similar stories years ago.
The winds of change are blowing. Years ago, a natural gas fired power plant was proposed for a location just outside Moundsville, WV. It died, mainly because of West Virginia’s fixation on coal. It’s back now, mainly because of the demand for power that AI data centers are driving.
Antero’s President, Michael Kennedy, explained why Antero bought HG Energy.
Thirumalai Chemicals, a company that uses a natural gas liquid, n-Butane, as the feedstock for all of its products, is about to start operations at its facility outside Moundsville, West Virginia. The main reason this facility is here is because of easy access to natural gas.
A bill to speed up permitting for oil and gas infrastructure (called the SPEED bill), has passed the House. It’s going to see some changes in the Senate, along with some opposition.
In case you were wondering, here’s one reason why Venezuelan crude oil is of interest to the United States. Whether we should be doing what we’re doing in Venezuela is an entirely different question, of course, and our readers will have differing opinions on that.
Six people were working to plug an orphaned well in Ohio when it exploded, injuring all of them. Two of them died later.
In 2025, the U.S. became the first country to ever export 100 million metric tons of LNG.
Vickery Energy acquired Tribune Resources’ assets. We’ve seen some leases from Vickery, and they’re not good. They don’t pay much in the way of bonuses or royalty, and they don’t offer much in the way of changes to the language of the lease. This is probably their way of getting in the door to actual operations.
Antero is looking to get $750 million to help with the purchase of HG Energy by selling senior notes.