Natural gas is at $3.12/MMBtu, up from a low of $2.84, but down from a high of $3.30.

Gas storage is at 3,567 Bcf, well below the 3,710 of last year, and just above the five-year average.

Drilling rigs are at 603, a significant jump up from 591 last month.

CNX donated money to some local fire departments and made some announcements while they did. They discussed the amount of royalties and severance taxes they’re paying out, the number of people they employ, and noted that the main constraint to additional development is the lack of pipelines to get product out of West Virginia.

On the other hand, PA, WV, and OH accounted for about 1/4 of the total U.S. production for the year.

Some data centers are looking at using steam-powered turbines to generate electricity. They aren’t as efficient as regular turbines, but would still work. So, if you can build a steam engine powered by natural gas you should have lots of business for the next few years.

Columbus, OH is getting 45 CNG buses.

The real root of the backlash against data centers is simply about change according to that article. I think it’s a little bit location specific. There are places where a data center could be done with little impact to the surrounding area, and others where the impact would be significant.

Here’s something you don’t see every day. Columbia Gas is shutting down some gas storage fields. Two of them underlie Marshall County, WV. It seems, from what we’ve read, that they were shut down in 1995 due to coal mining on the same acreage. Why they’ve chosen now to actually shut them down is unclear to us. However, it does explain why there’s a part of Marshall County that hasn’t been well developed for Marcellus shale yet. We expect to start seeing more leases and higher prices for Marshall County Marcellus shale in the future. Now, it’s going to take ten years to fully shut down, so we won’t see all of that get developed really quickly, but it’s coming!

Back in 2025 Shell’s Monaca, PA cracker plant exploded. Part of it did, anyways. The report is now final, and the DEP has fined Shell a little over $26,000. Damage from the explosion was about $95 million. The report states that there were 11 administrative controls that should have stopped the incident from progressing to an explosion, but something went wrong with each one. The report also makes recommendations for additional safeguards.

A West Virginia frac sand railroad terminal has been acquired by Twin Eagle Sand.

The Mountaineer Express Pipeline shut down because of a leak or an equipment failure, taking 1.8 MMBtus offline. That’s just under 2% of U.S. total daily production. The price of natural gas jumped. We could really use some more pipelines here.

One day later, and they’ve repaired the pipeline.

Here’s a report that says West Virginia’s water bills have doubled in the last ten years. It doesn’t go so far as to say that fracking has been the cause, but that seems to be a likely culprit. To put a little local, personal spin on it, I looked at my own water bills for this year and for 2015 and they really haven’t changed. I have been paying between $40 and $80 a month, depending on my usage. That’s just Upshur County, so perhaps other counties have gone up. Or maybe somebody’s playing with the statistics to get the result they want. Again. I honestly don’t know, but now you have two sides of the story.

West Virginia’s Attorney General, AJ McCuskey, is leading a coalition of 26 states which is backing the FERC’s proposed rule which will make it easier to update and expand existing pipelines. While this doesn’t make a clear path for a new pipeline, it’s improvement in an area that needs it.

The Trump Administration is proposing to scrap the super emitter program, a program that allows third parties using remote sensing tech to notify the EPA when there is a release of more than 100 kilos of methane. The program is currently not implemented, and implementation has been pushed back to January 2027. I doubt implementation would heavily affect Marcellus shale production, but it’s honestly hard to tell.

Cove Point LNG is back online, bumping up daily natural gas use a little bit.

There’s a case at the US Supreme Court that will determine whether pipeline companies calculate payment for interstate pipelines (federal eminent domain situations) based on State law or Federal law. At the State level, landowners can request reasonable attorney’s fees. At the Federal level, they can’t. Right now, there’s not a ruling in the Fourth Circuit (West Virginia’s jurisdiction) but there are rulings in other Circuits stating that State law should control. There won’t be a ruling until next summer, but it’s one to watch.

Natural gas is at $2.92/MMBtu. That’s up from a low of $2.69, and down from a high of $2.98.

Gas storage is at 3,254 Bcf, below last year’s 3,333 Bcf, but above the five-year average of 3,106 Bcf.

Drilling rigs are at 591, down from 593 a month ago, but up from the 588 which we sat at all month.

If you own a company that can make gas turbines, you’re in for a good few years.

OpenAI has finalized a deal on a data center up in Ohio. The gas to run the thing will mostly come from Ohio, but it’s going to be an enormous amount (Marcellus Drilling News calculated it at 1.46 Bcf per day) of gas. That’s about 1% of our total national daily production, and all the gas that flows through the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. We’ll need a few new wells for that, including wells in West Virginia.

New York is building battery storage. The plan was to store energy when it was produced by green sources and use it when they weren’t producing. However, batteries make money by buying electricity when it’s cheap and selling it when it’s expensive. Power is cheap in the middle of the night, and the power that’s being generated at that time of night is from gas. The study estimates that in order for the batteries to buy power from green sources, they would need 20 times the amount of green energy that they have or are building.

West Virginia is taking the middle ground in data center development. It’s not giving tax breaks, but it’s taking away the power of local towns and counties to put regulations on the data center. It’s creating a new administrative board to oversee development, but stating that eminent domain can’t be used to acquire property (I love that aspect of it). It’s not a bad approach, from my point of view. I still think the data center that’s proposed for Tucker County is a bad idea because that part of Tucker County relies so heavily on tourism and a gigantic data center just outside of town is not good for tourism.

This op-ed discusses how data centers should be developed, emphasizing openness and pointing out that the thing data centers really want is a quick development timeline. It’s a very good read.

EQT released contaminated water from a drilling site up in PA a while back. They still haven’t cleaned it up. This looks bad for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose some leases and well pad deals because farmers don’t want EQT working on their land.

Georgia Power has signed a contract with a data center that is actually going to lower the rate that regular consumers pay. Now that’s the way to do it!

Drillers in the Permian Basin have started using soap to get more oil out of the shale. While we’re not after oil in our part of the Marcellus, this kind of “science” is being done all the time on the natural gas wells being developed here. The producers are always looking for ways to get more product out of the rock.

The DOE is running a geothermal test well out in Utah. Geothermal could someday become a thing here in West Virginia.

Venezuela is considering exiting OPEC. If they do, that will decrease Saudi Arabia’s influence on oil prices and geopolitics.

SpaceX is building a foundry to cast gas turbines. Now is the time to do that. You can’t buy a gas turbine until 2030 right now. If you need one, you’ve got to make one.

EQT is in the very early stages of planning an interstate pipeline (linked page is behind a paywall) from Greene County, PA to the Clarington Hub in Ohio. They’re calling it the POWER Pipeline. This will take it right across Marshall County. This is an opportunity for West Virginia landowners to realize a nice payday. The starting price should be $1/inch/foot, or $42 per linear foot. This is just a starting price, as there will be plenty of opportunity to negotiate for more, either before EQT starts eminent domain proceedings or after they go to court. Their first offer is never their best offer. Also keep in mind that if you oppose their efforts from the beginning, or just ask them for a ridiculous price, they may decide to go around you. I’ve had clients do that on purpose successfully. Eminent domain complicates that, of course, but if you express your opposition early and loudly you could succeed in getting them to go around you.

The West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office released numbers reflecting the amount of tax revenue the State and Counties could expect from the data centers in Berkeley County and Putnam County. The total is $103 million per year. That’s a pretty nice chunk of change. I still think the one in Tucker County is a bad idea as their economy is built around tourism and that data center is likely to affect that.

West Virginia is suing Pennsylvania over its regulations regarding green energy tax credits, stating that the regulations make it so that West Virginia energy producers can’t sell to PA.

FERC Chairman Laura Swett talks about upcoming changes to the grid and related regulations.

The Iran war continues to disrupt oil supplies, this time shutting down the Saudi pipeline that’s transporting a small portion of the oil that tankers used to.

Natural gas is $2.76/MMBtu, above the month’s low of $2.64, and well below the high of $2.93.

Drilling rigs are at 593, up quite a lot from last month’s 581.

Gas storage is at 3,169 Bcf, a little lower than last year’s 3,197 Bcf, but well above the five-year average of 2,984.

Here’s an article stating that the industry has gotten better at taking more gas out of each acre.

Natural gas markets and electric power markets are inextricably linked, even worldwide.

EQT has entered into an agreement with Competitive Power Ventures to provide gas to their new power plant in Doddridge County, WV.

EQT is also adding compressors to its gathering system. They say that this reduces pipeline pressures, allowing older well to continue producing for longer. The linked article also adds some detail about the agreement with Competitive Power Ventures.

And here is EQT’s 2Q26 Report.

And here’s an article tooting EQT’s horn.

Here’s Antero’s 2Q26 Report.

Here’s CNX’s 2Q26 Report.

Dominion is building an enormous gas-fired power plant at Mt. Storm, WV. They say it will provide electricity to the grid, but Mt. Storm is awfully close to Parsons, where they’re hoping to build an enormous data center. My guess is that at least some of that electricity will end up there.

AEP Ohio has bought the Maidsville, WV coal plant and bought an existing permit to build 1.2 gigawatts of natural gas power at that same location.

Here is Diversified’s 2Q26 Report.

Here is MPLX’s 2Q26 Report. MPLX is a pipeline and processing company.

Permitting reform isn’t dead, it’s just in negotiation limbo.

Andrew Topf over at Oilprice.com discusses five LNG projects he thinks will be a big part of the next gas boom.

Natural gas is at $2.92/MMBtu, well down from last month’s price of $3.11, and down from a high of $3.30 in the last month.

Gas storage is at 2,983 Bcf, just under 2,998 one year ago, and well above the five-year average of 2,798.

Drilling rigs are at 581, up from 563 a month ago.

The data center out in Mason County, currently being developed by NSCALE, is requesting a permit for a 14 mile pipeline.

Seneca Resources has found an impermeable barrier, called a seismite, in the Utica Shale formation up in north-central PA. Unfortunately, the only article I can find about it so far (three weeks later) is behind a paywall at Hart Energy. It’s interesting because the seismite prevents fracking fractures (is that redundant?) from propagating through it vertically. That means they can run two horizontals through the Utica in that area. It may not double the production from any given acre, but it will certainly increase it compared to just one horizontal. Now, this is probably a local phenomenon; a seismite probably doesn’t exist in the Utica here in West Virginia. However, you’d better believe EQT, Antero, and Expand have this info and are going to test it.

WVU’s Research Farm has been given two tractors which are powered by CNG.

EQT has drilled the longest oil and gas well to date (someone will drill one longer within a year or so) at 37,610 feet total depth, with 29,070 feet being the horizontal leg. That’s 5.5 miles for the horizontal and just over 7.1 miles for the total. Sheesh. It happens to be in West Virginia, too.

Certarus, a North American company, has ordered trucks from Hexagon Agility in Norway which will be used for a “mobile pipeline”. In other words, the trucks will haul CNG or LNG from one place to another. Guess if you can’t have pipelines you can have trucks.

Toby Rice, CEO of EQT, thinks natural gas will overtake petroleum as the majority of energy produced and used in the United States by 2030.

U.S. exports of crude oil and petroleum products reached an all-time high in April, at 13.6 million barrels per day.

The United States imports less than 1% of its oil from Saudi Arabia, but the oil market is a world market, so lower supply drives prices for everyone up.

Natural gas is at $3.06/MMBtu, up from $2.89/MMBtu, but down from a high in the last month of $3.34/MMBtu.

Gas storage is at 2,686 Bcf, slightly under last year’s 2,691 Bcf, but still above the five-year average of 2,535 Bcf.

Drilling rigs are at 562, up considerably from last month’s 551.

Dominion Energy is going to merge with NextEra Energy.

MPLX’s 1Q26 Earnings Call shows that new infrastructure is needed in West Virginia. Much of the infrastructure is running close to capacity, at 94%. Interestingly, one slide shows 2027 “Marcellus Gathering Expansion”. Expansion has to mean pipelines, though a gathering system will be all inside the state.

Reliability is becoming more important to the worldwide LNG market, and the U.S. is the most reliable source.

The Trump Administration has extended the Jones Act waiver for another 90 days.

TechCrunch has an article that says that solar will become the dominant form of energy worldwide in the next decade (so by 2035). I have nothing against solar, but it feels like this kind of article pops up pretty regularly, and the predictions made in them have never been right.

Here’s some EIA data on new natural gas pipelines in the U.S. Most of them are in Texas, and none of them are in West Virginia.

The Appalachian Basin is the United States’ natural gas foundation.

We haven’t had a reason to talk about DUCs (Drilled but UnCompleted wells) in a while, but they’re in the news again. The number of DUCs is down due to high prices and high demand, but producers are expecting to start drilling more of them soon.

The necessity of behind-the-meter power generation is one reason why data centers are looking to locate to West Virginia.

The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the State’s environmental protection laws which direct where a well pad can be located do not supersede the City of Weirton’s authority (which is also based in State law) to control land use within its borders.

Our natural gas storage capacity went up just a little tiny bit (0.01%) in 2025.

Here’s an interview with a U.S. Senator who was previously the CEO of Williams Co. in which he explains why it’s so hard to build a natural gas pipeline in the U.S. these days.

Oil prices have gone down to April levels based on the Trump Administration’s statement that there won’t be any new attacks and that a peace deal is (again) imminent. You’ll see lower oil prices reflected at the pump soon.

Here’s some detailed analysis of what the re-opening of the Straight of Hormuz is going to mean for the oil and gas world. It’s surprisingly interesting.

Here’s an article that explains how AI is being used in the oil and gas industry.

Natural gas is at $2.96/MMBtu, up from a low of $2.52 at one point in the last month.

Gas storage is at 2,290 Bcf, a little above last year’s 2,239 Bcf, and above the five-year average of 2,150 Bcf.

Drilling rigs are at 551, up from 543 last month.

The first cargo of LNG from the Golden Pass liquefaction plant is about to be loaded.

Arsenal Resources is marketing itself for $1.5 billion. Word on the streets is that Antero is looking at buying them, but it’s early and there could be others interested.

Both the blockade and the ceasefire have been extended in the Iran war.

The Wolf Summit Energy facility in Harrison County is officially under construction. It’s the first new natural gas power plant in West Virginia since the Marcellus shale boom began almost two decades ago. Others have been proposed, only to be scuttled by the coal industry. This is an important step for West Virginia.

EQT has funded the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering lab at WVU, with a ribbon cutting taking place on April 17, 2026.

The United Arab Emirates is withdrawing from OPEC+. Here are some opinions about what this means for the future of OPEC+.

Here is Expand’s 1Q26 Earnings Call transcript.

Here is Antero’s 1Q26 Earnings Call transcript.

You can find EQT’s 1Q26 Earnings Call transcript as a .pdf on this page.

You can find CNX’s 1Q26 Earnings call transcript here.

This is interesting. Equinor challenged a severance tax calculation by the State of West Virginia that dealt with the definition of gross proceeds. Equinor won, and the opinion seems to say that gross proceeds gets calculated at the point of sale. In this case, Equinor sold gas to MarkWest at the point where the gas entered the MarkWest plant, but MarkWest got to deduct the costs of turning the gas into plant products before paying Equinor. There’s a good chance this is going to affect royalty owners.

Hog Lick has been looking at doing a hydrogen plant in Marion County. Since the federal government isn’t promising to pay for hydrogen development any more, Hog Lick has been forced to pivot. They’re now thinking about building a data center. They already have the land, and they’re considering using geothermal cooling (the flooded Krissy Coal Mine) to handle the heat that data centers create. It will be interesting to follow this.

A Senator from Oklahoma is pointing out that we need more pipelines. Well, he’s arguing mainly for easier permitting, but it’s for oil and gas infrastructure and that includes pipelines.

Energy production in the U.S. in 2025 set a record at 107 quadrillion BTUs, an increase of 3.4% over 2024. Most of that increase was from natural gas, NGLs, and oil.

The Strait of Hormuz is still in limbo, as are peace talks. The result? High prices at the gas pump. I really wish Congress would step in and either stop military action or declare war. Letting a President do what he wants sets bad precedent.

Here’s some analysis of how the Iran war has affected global oil markets.

Natural gas is at $2.79/MMBtu, down from a high of $3.21 a few weeks ago, but up from a low of $2.64 a few days ago.

Gas storage is 1,970 Bcf, a little higher than last year’s 1.844 BCF, and a little higher than the five-year average of 1,862.

Drilling rigs are 545, down from 553, but up from a low a few weeks ago of 543.

The Marcellus/Utica area produced more natural gas than any other area of the United States in 2025.

Shell says that global LNG demand will rise by 54% by 2040.

There’s more demand for oil from the U.S. because of the Iran War, but shale drilling is unlikely to provide a quick response. The Permian Basin is constrained by pipeline capacity (you can’t build pipelines in mere months) and other basins have about a five-month turnaround time. Also, none of the producers start drilling new wells when a temporary market disruption occurs, and the Iran war is likely to be temporary, at least when looked at from a driller’s perspective.

The Trump administration has waived the requirements of the Jones Act for sixty days. This should reduce the price of LNG shipments between U.S. ports.

Iran’s attacks on Qatar have destroyed 17% of that country’s liquid natural gas production for the next five years. That’s going to drive up demand for U.S. LNG.

With the war in Iran, oil prices are going up and are expected to stay up.

EQT thinks that by 2030, demand for gas from the Marcellus/Utica region will increase by 6-7 Bcf/d. The trouble for West Virginia is that we really need more pipelines heading out, or even better, additional value-added industry inside the State.

Natural gas prices are on the rise as well, and speculation is that fertilizer prices will rise, leading to a rise in food prices.

Here’s an article about H.B. 5381, which provides some substance to the West Virginia Governor’s 50 by 50 initiative.

Microsoft has signed a letter of intent to take 1.4 gigawatts of power from Nscale, the company building a power plant over in Mason County, WV.

I’ve labored under the delusion that America’s refineries couldn’t refine American crude oil because the refineries were designed to use a heavier crude oil than we produce. Turns out that’s not the case. Our refineries can use American crude, it’s just not as efficient, either in the refining process or the economics.

Oil prices are above $110/bbl.

Antero sued a local gas transmission company, Stonewall Gas Gathering, for $200 million and won a dollar.

OPEC+ has agreed to increase production by 206,000 barrels per day in May. This will not even come close to offsetting the 20 million barrels per day that flow through the Straits of Hormuz.

A ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has led to a quick drop in oil prices.

There is excellent news from Libya! Both ruling parties have come together to create a unified budget for the first time in over a decade. This could be the beginning of stability for the poor Libyan people, which would also lead to consistent oil production from the country.

MSN put together a good bullet point read of Antero’s Earning’s Call transcript.

Natural gas is at $3.09/MMBtu, up from a low of $2.83 about two weeks ago, but down from a high of $3.23 three days ago.

Gas storage is at 1,848 Bcf, above the 1,707 of last year, but very close to the five-year average of 1,865.

Drilling rigs are at 553, up slightly from 551 last month.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison have announced a new 1,200 megawatt natural gas power plant in Monongalia County, WV, near the existing Fort Martin power plant.

Antero Resources has agreed to settle with the U.S. DOJ and the WV DEP over alleged violations of the Clean Air Act and West Virginia Air Pollution Control regulations. The settlement requires Antero to pay a $3.8 million penalty, as well as make improvements to 242 of their sites in West Virginia and Ohio.

Looks like we’re going to start measuring power plants in gigawatts, now. There’s going to be a 9.2 gigawatt (9,200 megawatt) power plant built up in Ohio. Most of the gas that goes to that plant will be Marcellus/Utica gas.

The coal industry is ramping up to oppose natural gas plants in West Virginia. I know we have a lot of coal here, but we also have a lot of natural gas. We shouldn’t be shipping it out of the state without turning it into something more valuable first, and natural gas power plants are a great way of doing that.

The West Virginia oil and gas industry responded to the coal industry.

The free market is responding to the natural gas turbine shortage, as the free market does.

West Virginians are pushing back against the recent push to build data centers.

The father of the Marcellus shale play, Bill Zagorski, talks about what they did to make the Marcellus a good formation to drill and produce from, and what technologies and techniques could come into play in the future.

GO-WV published a fact sheet about West Virginia’s oil and gas production, including that WV is the fifth largest natural gas producing state in the nation, and that the industry supports about 73,000 jobs in the state.

A U.S. LNG producer, Caturus Energy, inked a deal between its subsidiary, Commonwealth LNG and a Saudi Arabian company, Mercuria Energy Trading, to sell 1 Mtpa (million tonnes per annum) of LNG to Saudi Arabia every year for the next 20 years. This marks significant changes in the energy and geopolitical world.

A company named Quantum Pleasants has finished a one-year trial of a technology that uses coal or natural gas to create hydrogen. The Pleasants Power Plant is located east of Parkersburg up the Ohio River.

The U.S. has carried out military strikes against Iran. This will disrupt the flow of oil, and drive its price up, of course, as Iran produces about 4.3 million barrels of oil per day.

Iranian drone strikes on Qatar have forced the closure of Qatar’s LNG exports.

Hope Gas is going to build a $250 million pipeline over in Mason County, WV. While that’s certainly not an enormous project, it’s also not small. This is the same pipeline that we mentioned in last month’s article, which is going to a data center over on the river.

Hope Gas’ Morgantown Connector pipeline just started flowing gas.

Technologies used for drilling oil and gas wells could be used for geothermal wells.

About ten days into the Iran war, and oil prices have jumped. They are expected to steady, and then probably drop back down as the uncertainties of war become known quantities.

Natural gas turbine makers are ramping up production capacity, albeit cautiously.

Saudi Arabia is cutting oil production as their ability to move oil through the Straight of Hormuz is hampered.

Natural gas is at $3.11/MMBtu, down from a high of $4.22/MMBtu.

Gas storage is at 2,214 Bcf, below last year’s 2,311 Bcf for the same time period, and also below the five-year average of 2,344 Bcf. The cold weather really drew down a lot of gas.

Drilling rigs are at 551, up from 543.

The ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub is less likely to be built now that there’s not a ton of money available from the federal government to fund it. That’s because there’s not a market for hydrogen.

West Virginia is in the PJM Interconnection, which is a regional transmission organization, or in other words, “part of our power grid”. The sudden increase in demand (mostly from AI data centers) and the lack of new power plants (WV has spiked quite a few power plant proposals in the past) has brought us to something of a crisis point. The President and 13 governors recently got together and told PJM what to do about it. PJM has its own ideas.

They’re building pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana–18 Bcf/day of new capacity! I’ll grant that it’s easier to build pipelines there, but we have a lot of gas that needs to be moved out of here. Somebody will build one here soon. I don’t make a lot of predictions, but I predict that we’ll hear rumors of a new one in or around West Virginia before the end of the year.

There’s a shortage of gas turbines for use in power plants. One suggestion is to repurpose old jet aircraft engines, as they are gas turbines.

The Moundsville power plant plans have been finalized, which means that Calpine is going to build it. We have a Governor who actually supports natural gas as a source of electric power generation this time, so it shouldn’t get terminated at the last second. The linked article includes some information about Governor Morrisey’s 50 by 50 plan as well.

The recent cold weather snap has led to “freeze offs”, which means that natural gas facilities are unable to move gas through their lines. This affects all natural gas equipment, from the smallest wells to the largest power plants. You can’t avoid physics.

It was only a matter of time. A pooling order has been remanded to the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission because the Commission didn’t look at the evidence regarding whether an oil and gas company (in this case Arsenal Resources) negotiated in good faith with oil and gas owners.

As LNG exports have risen, geopolitics have begun to affect the market.

During the extreme cold snap, LNG exporters turned around and imported LNG. This was in part because of a law that says you can’t transport LNG from one port in the U.S. to another, as the article explains.

Fidelis has announced an enormous power generation facility in Mason County, WV. It will probably power up next year, and start with about 2GW of generation capacity. It could ramp up to between 8 and 10 GW, which is truly enormous. If it does get that big, it will be the biggest in the country. Incidentally, we just wrapped up negotiations for a client on a part of the pipeline that will lead to this facility.

Antero has completed the purchase of HG Energy.

The EIA has increased 2026’s Henry Hub price forecast by 25%, from $3.46 to $4.31.

The accepted theory is that oil and natural gas are by-products of ancient plant matter getting buried and then changing into hydrocarbons. There is another theory out there, the abiotic theory, which is that oil and natural gas are the products of heat and pressure at depth, and that they are being produced constantly. The old landman that trained me up believed this. I didn’t believe it at the time. Lo and behold, there is some evidence that it may be true.

Northeast Natural Energy is partnering with Evolution Well Services to use e-fracking on their well sites. E-fracking uses natural gas from the well or nearby wells to run generators that provide electricity to power the frack pumps.

Manufacturing industries that rely on natural gas are hurt when severe cold hits because they are the first to have their supply turned off. It’s a problem that could be offset by additional pipelines.

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.