The Daily Digger

From Seeking Alpha's transcript of EQT's 3rd-quarter earnings call: Now for the operational update. On October 13, FERC issued the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for the Mountain Valley Pipeline or MVP. The FERC Certificate is a significant step in the regulatory process and keeps us on track to achieve our targeted 2018 in-service date. The MVP team is working hard to secure the remaining federal and state permits and approvals over the coming weeks. We expect to receive the FERC notice to proceed by the end of this year and commence construction soon after. In addition to the progress we've made on the regulatory front, we've also made significant progress on the project management side. We recently awarded contracts for about 80% of the construction work and we expect to have the remaining construction work awarded soon.  Moving on to an update of the HammerHead project. As a reminder, HammerHead is a gathering header pipeline, which will feed ga...

by Matt Mandel, Energy in Depth The World Bank released its  October 2017 Commodity Markets Outlook  last week, finding the average U.S. shale breakeven oil price has dropped more than 42 percent since the beginning of 2013, thanks to technological improvements. Advances in technology and drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, coupled with resource rich domestic shale plays, means American producers are continuing to thrive despite lower commodity prices. Of course, technologies such as horizontal drilling and fracking have opened a wealth of oil resources that were previously unreachable just over a decade ago. In the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shale production accounted for  over six million barrels per day  (b/d) in October of this year, up from about 1.5 million b/d at the start of 2010 – a 400 percent increase. In fact, EIA estimates producers will  best the previous total U.S. crude production recor...

From Reuters: A U.S. District Court in Akron has ruled that Ohio law allows energy companies to deduct fees from payments to royalty holders whose contracts set a value at the well site, settling a widely-followed case involving Chesapeake Energy.  The decision defined for the first time what Ohio law means when it says value of energy in such contracts is established “at the well.” Plaintiffs in the lawsuit had sought class action status and other royalty cases have alleged improper deductions based on the ‘at the well’ language. Ohio has become the sixth largest natural gas producer in the United States because of the discovery in recent decades of shale gas in what has become known as the Utica shale field.  In 2009, Regis Lutz and other royalty holders sued Chesapeake, Columbia Energy Group and NiSource Inc alleging breach of contract and fraud over deductions for services that took place after the fuel left the wells on their properties. Columbia Energy Group and ...

From the American Gas Association: The American Gas Association (AGA) said today that natural gas customers nationwide may experience a five percent increase, on average, on their heating bills this winter compared to last year. Following two unseasonably warm winters for much of the country, residential customers are likely to use an average of three percent more natural gas this winter due to colder temperatures, which may result in a moderate increase in overall bills.  Natural gas will continue to be the most affordable option for home heating in the United States.  “Americans may use slightly more natural gas this winter to heat their homes, but due to the excellent energy value provided by natural gas, people are not likely to see a very different bill than what they have seen over the past seven years,” said Chris McGill, vice-president of Energy Analysis and Standards at AGA. “We are entering the third winter heating season following the extreme cold of 2013-2014...

From Livingston Daily: State environmental officials cited a pipeline company Friday for releasing gasoline into a wetland near Pinckney. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality received reports from residents Tuesday about the smell of gasoline coming from a site where Energy Transfer's Rover 42-inch natural-gas pipeline crosses wetlands east of Silver Lake near the 11000 block of Cedar Drive in Dexter Township. The multi-state natural-gas pipeline, which is not in operation, will pass through 15 miles of Livingston County, coming from the south through Washtenaw and Lenawee counties.  MDEQ analysts visited the site, noticed the smell of gasoline and collected water samples, Rebecca Taylor of the MDEQ Remediation and Redevelopment Division said Friday. Click here to continue reading. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From the Record-Courier: A pipeline worker, killed Monday when a natural gas line blew, was thrown into a fence and died instantly, the Stark County Coroner’s Office said. Coroner’s Office Investigator Rick Walters said Wesley J. Johnson, 60, of Wooster, was standing near the pipe while he and another Columbia Gas Transmission worker were completing maintenance at a metering station. The cause of the incident, in the 8500 block of Beth Avenue SW, remains under investigation, line owner TransCanda said. Investigators believe the end cap came off the pipe, spewing natural gas and other materials used in the transmission line. The pressure of the materials threw Johnson backward into the fence, Walters said. An autopsy was conducted Tuesday, with Walters saying beforehand the cause of death was massive trauma to Johnson’s chest. Read more by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

Much like the predictions from analysts about oil prices, the predictions for whether good times or difficult times are coming for U.S. shale drillers are all over the map.  Here is a sampling of the recent articles discussing various predictions about shale. From Platts: US shale oil production is unlikely to peak before the middle of next decade, but current fracking techniques may be risking the prospect of faster decline rates from tight oil than many are forecasting, a top oil industry event was told this week.  As the US shale industry continues to chase lower breakevens and boost productivity in the wake of the 2014 price downturn, shale players have turned to pumping much larger volumes of sand and water into horizontal wells.  In addition to "bigger fracks", drillers have also increased the density of their fracking stages in a bid to boost the volumes of tight oil drained from each well.  Although the techniques have raised initial flows rates by...