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Friday, July 2, 2021

MRO: Nine Wells On A 1280-Acre Drilling Unit -- July 2, 2021

From the July, 2021, NDIC hearing dockets, this is a case, not a permit:

  • 28865, MRO, Bailey-Bakken, nine wells on a 1280-acre unit, sections 18/19-146-93, Dunn County;

The graphic:

The two active wells in this drilling unit:

  • 16992, 149, MRO, Kevin Buehner 31-18H, Bailey, t8/08; cum 196K 4/21;
  • 16715, 463, MRO, Kevin Buehner 11-18H, Bailey, t10/07; cum 394K 4/21;

One is a lousy well; the other well is fairly decent. It will be interesting to see if these wells are kept in production when newer wells are drilled. The Bailey oil field is well known to be a great field for the observing the "halo effect."

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Golf Cart, Flathead Lake

WPX Looks To Put Eight Wells Under The Lake -- July 2, 2021

From the July, 2021, NDIC hearing dockets, this is a case, not a permit:

  • 28904, WPX, Reunion Bay-Bakken, eight wells on an existing 1280-acre unit; sections 25/26-150-93; Mountrail/Dunn counties:

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Liberace and Friends At The Piano

Week 26: June 27, 2021 -- July 3, 2021

How this week will be remembered: the White House tweet that the Fourth of July BBQ (without steak) will cost the average American 16 cents less than last summer). And the White House spokesperson doubled down on that -- defending it and defending it with a straight face. So, how this week will be remembered: Sixteen cents, thanks Biden.

Top story of the week:

  • Joe Biden is still president.
  • Kamala Harris wearing out her welcome in the Biden administration.
  • Fourth of July barbecue less expensive than last year -- White House

Top international non-energy story:

Top international energy story:

Top national non-energy story:

Top national energy story:

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story
:

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota energy stories:

Operators:


Operations:

Fracking:

Pipelines:

Bakken economy:

Commentary:

Top tweet:

Whiting With Four New Permits -- July 2, 2021

Active rigs:

$75.16
7/2/202107/02/202007/02/201907/02/201807/02/2017
Active Rigs2311606758

Four new permits, #38408 - 38411, inclusive:

  • Operators: Whiting
  • Fields: Sanish (Mountrail)
  • Comments:
    • Whiting has permits for four wells in the Sanish; three will be Kannianen wells; one will be a Fred TTT well
      • Fred TTT 12-25XH, SWNW 25-154-92, 2386 FNL 593 FWL,
      • Kannianen 11-5TFHU, Lot 4 section 5-153-91, 408 FNL 714 FWL
      • Kannianen 11-5TFH, Lot 4 section54-153-91, 408 FNL 684 FWL
      • Kannianen 11-5HU, Lot 4 section 5-153-91, 408 FNL 594 FWL,
      • Whiting's Kannianen wells are tracked here.

Two wells released from confidential status:

  • 28661, PNC/loc, Slawson, Nightmaker 6-8-17TFH, Big Bend,
  • 28662, PNC/loc, Slawson, Nightmaker 7-8-17TFH, Big Bend,

Two permits renewed:

  • 28661, PNC/loc, Slawson, Nightmaker 6-8-17TFH, Big Bend,
  • 28662, PNC/loc, Slawson, Nightmaker 7-8-17TFH, Big Bend,

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

  • 37554, loc/A, CLR, Norway 10-5HSL1, Dimmick Lake, first production --; t--; cum --; small production over three days;
  • 37503, loc/A, CLR, Miles 13-6H2, Dimmick Lake, first production --; t--; cum --; small production over three days;

Notes From All Over -- Finally Caught Up Edition -- July 2, 2021

Catfight! Link here. My favorite twit. LOL. 

Records, records, and more records.

  • all three major indices close at new records:
    • NASDAQ:  14,639.33.
    • S&P 500: 4352.34
    • Dow: 34,786.35

Ten-year Treasury yield: 1.431%. Pretty amazing, huh? All that hand-wringing over 1.5%. LOL. 

Steve on CNBC:

  • next Fed announcement in October, 2021 -- begin tapering (but very, very slowly)
  • first rate raise: October, 2022;
  • those numbers already "baked in" to today's market

Spiro Agnew: if she has not, should Kamala read his biography?

UK coal: UK to end coal use in electricity generation by one year, to October, 2024. Link here.

Today's humor. Despite major electricity reliability problems AOC wants Puerto Rico to shut down its reliable, resilient coal plant "tomorrow." This plant provides 20% of Puerto Rico's electricity. Link here

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Ninja Warriors

Reason #23 Why I Love To Blog -- July 2, 2021

Another reason I love to blog: I keep up with "things" I would otherwise read and forget. 

Exhibit A: streaming options

At that post, I spoke about Hulu, Amazon, Disney, Apple, Roku, and others. 

Without question, my favorite is Hulu, majority owned by Disney.

The company that will evolve the most over the next two years if it wants to stay not only competitive but also relevant: Roku. 

Like Netflix, Roku will move from hardware to software. 

But today's news, and this is really huge: Roku remote will now have an Apple button. Wow.

On my Amazon TV Fire stick remote there are four buttons: Prime Video (of course); Netflix; Disney+; and, hulu. It looks like there is room for two more buttons. Something tells me Amazon won't put an Apple button on the remote. LOL.

From Motley Fool:

Apple is apparently hungry for real estate on your Roku remote. Shares of Roku moved higher on Wednesday after screenshots showed the remote for the high-end Roku Ultra streaming device replacing a Sling TV button with one for the Apple TV+ service.

The market's initial reaction -- up 4.3% on Wednesday -- may seem like an overreaction. We're talking about a roughly $250 million bump in market cap just because one of the four branded buttons on the bottom of a remote changed. We don't know what Apple TV+ is paying for the one-push access, but you can be sure that it's not much if anything more than what Sling was sending Roku's way.

The market excitement here with the move of an Apple TV+ button on the updated remote is more about validation of Roku by what was once seen as one of its three main competitors. Roku has arrived. The stock may have given back all of Wednesday's gains the following day, but it's still one more reason why you don't want to bet against Roku.

If you're like me -- with a collection of different Roku remotes -- you'll be quick to notice that buttons change pretty often. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) always commands the prime position of the first of four service-branded spots. Netflix probably doesn't have to pay for that visibility, and Roku in the past has said that it generates negligible marketing revenue from Netflix.

Roku and Netflix go way back. Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood was even working at Netflix on a streaming device before Netflix decided it didn't want to get into the hardware/platform space. The Netflix Player was nixed, and the team led by Wood was spun off. It's how Roku was born.

Much more at the link.

As seen above, the linked article begins:

Apple is apparently hungry for real estate on your Roku remote. 

I like to think that Roku was hungry for "the next big thing": Apple TV+. 

I don't care for Apple TV+. I subscribe but I don't watch. It's still free for subscribers who pay around $4.95 per month for the subscription but get a rebate of about $4.50 each month. That rebate is going to go away soon (if it hasn't already gone away). 

But it doesn't matter than I don't care for Apple TV+. A lot of folks do. While at T-Mobile (Sprint) yesterday, I spoke with a woman much younger than I and she said she enjoyed Apple TV+ mostly because of all the original content. 

The fact that Apple has a button on the Roku remote speaks volumes about both companies. 

The Unemployment Numbers Were Reported Today -- Yawn -- July 2, 2021

 I doubt anyone really cares but the mainstream media certainly thinks the weekly and monthly jobs reports are important. And, wow, the media can certainly spin that story. 

When I saw the numbers for June, 2021, I was not impressed. It looked like a pretty dismal report, and the market apparently agreed -- the US equity market surged, knowing that the jobs numbers -- not being good -- would allow "the Fed" to maintain the course. And that was great news for the market. 

The only number folks really follow -- the unemployment number -- actually rose from 5.8 percent to 5.9 percent, but worse, analysts had expected the unemployment rate to drop to 5.6 percent. And yet, the mainstream media universally praised the jobs report. LOL. Had this been a GOP administration, the mainstream media would have skewered the administration for a rising unemployment rate. 

But it's all hypocrisy. No one really cares. At least not in the way we would want the government to care. 

Yesterday, in an extended CNBC interview, the Commerce Secretary said the answer to unemployment was .... drum roll ... education and training. 

And we move on. 

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Flathead Lake

Notes From All Over -- Catching Up -- Part 2 -- July 2, 2021

Texas freeze hangover: could spoil California's summer. Link here. Interesting story. This helps answer the question I had regarding the California heat wave which I wrote about on June 29, 2021, just a couple of days ago. 

That post began:

Link here.

  • Spot gas prices in Southern California surged 8% today to $7.08/MMBtu as the region turned to gas-fired generation to cope with the ongoing heatwave while power imports dropped.
  • Relevant tickers include SRE, EIX, PCG
  • California ISO's thermal power demand has spiked in the days since the start of the West Coast heat wave, with generation ramping up 58% to 331 GWh on June 28 from 210 GWh on June 26, 2021.
  • Yet even as total power demand rose, power imports into the state fell 36% to 85 GWh on June 28 from 133 GWh on June 26.
  • The National Weather Service forecasts the upper-level high-pressure system responsible for the heat wave could weaken by July 1.

Now, more, from the link above.  

This is pretty amazing (as you read the article, think about the amount of pressure EVs would put on the grid). 

A drought threatens California's hydroelectric power, and now its natural gas backup is also running low. 

This all comes from an original op-ed in Bloomberg. Or here, perhaps without a paywall.

California’s hydropower reserves are drying up in the most literal sense. 
This summer, however, the fuel that normally stands in for water is also running lower than usual. 
Natural gas typically fulfills two roles for California’s power grid during a hot, dry summer. 
First, it fills in the gap left by depleted hydropower. Second, it handles much of the state’s surge in electricity demand during the early evening, when solar power fades; especially important if that surge is powering a lot of air-conditioning [and when folks return home from work, plugging in their EVs]. 
California’s gas market is twitchy. 
PG&E Corp.’s recent announcement of maintenance on a key pipeline through the end of June caused the premium on local gas supplies to jump to its highest level since February. 
It didn’t help that, around the same time, power stations in California and Nevada were suddenly burning double the amount of gas compared to the previous month as a heatwave washed over the West. 
PG&E had also just reclassified about 50 billion cubic feet of its gas inventory as "base" gas -- which stays in the tank to maintain pressure -- from the "working" gas that can actually be drawn upon to meet demand.  
Net net, it looks like California may be entering the height of a particularly demanding summer with the lowest stockpile of gas in more than decade.
One reason for this concerns prior events in another state some way, geographically and philosophically, from Sacramento: Texas. California produces very little gas of its own, relying on imports from the Rockies, Canada (via the Pacific Northwest) and Texas (via the desert Southwest). A little of that gas then usually heads south out of California to Mexico. 

Most readers can connect the dots from there, but if not, it's all made clear at the linked article.

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For Investors

Dividends: if one wants to see a long list of dividend-paying companies highlighted by Kiplinger Today, here's one link. It's a SeekingAlpha link so the article will disappear behind a paywall shortly. 

AMD set to dominate: due to Intel's ongoing delays. Previously posted through a different source. This, too, is a SeekingAlpha link so the article will disappear behind a paywall shortly. 

US ethane exports: April, 2021, US ethane exports rose to a record in April, 2021, supported by expanded export infrastructure, surpassing the high set in the prior month (March, 2021).

Exports rose 9 percent from March, 2021, and a 45 percent increase from April, 2020. Energy Transfer's 180,000 b/d Orbit ethane export terminal in Nederland, Texas, came on line at the beginning of the year. The facility is the third ethane export terminal in the county. 

Brent: a subject often discussed on the blog. Now, this from Gerald Jansen. A huge story; needs to be posted as a stand-alone post. 

Surprised? Still one of my favorite tweets. Link here. WTI at $75.01 today (July 2, 2021).

Oil rally. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova. Forty percent rally puts oil prices on track for best first half since 2009. That's more than a decade of suffering for oil bulls. LOL.

Brent -- Johan Sverdrup -- An Update -- July 2, 2021

Brent: a subject often discussed on the blog. Now, this from Gerald Jansen. A huge story; deserves a stand-alone post. 

I track the Johan Sverdrup here. It's pretty amazing. I first started tracking the Johan Sverdrup in early 2018 guessing it would be a huge deal; it was.

Deliberations on which benchmark presents the best opportunities to trade just never seem to stop. The gradual decline of all erstwhile champions of North Sea output champions has compelled pricing agencies to include newer and newer grades into the Brent basket to ensure the traded benchmark’s liquidity.

The recent maintenance of the Forties pipeline system, with the UK grade being the largest stream within the Brent price-setting barrel pool, has rekindled speculation that pricing transparency requires substantial volumes, which can only come about by physically extending the basket. Despite being Europe’s largest producing oilfield now, at some point assumed to amount to more than third of Norway’s total output, Johan Sverdrup has been an unlikely candidate to join the ranks of BFOET grades, yet it is indeed the Norwegian grade that is believed to be the prime candidate.  

The issue of Brent liquidity has haunted reporting agencies for quite some time already. All of the grades making up Dated Brent are either in terminal decline or currently plateauing, meaning that the immediate future of BFOET -- Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, and Troll – would be hover around 600kbpd before even dropping lower. Platts, the main source of market information for Dated Brent, has tried to add a delivered WTI quote to its Brent assessments, to little avail. This in and of itself is a deviation from the current Brent logic as all involved quotes are FOB bases, not delivered ones. Moreover, WTI is doubly problematic as it lacks the foreseeable character of North Sea grades whose loading programs are acted upon even before a cargo’s loading takes place.  

Thus, Johan Sverdrup emerged as Europe’s response to the concept of expanding the Brent basket. Its loadings are as trackable as those of Forties and it also loads on a North Sea FOB basis. What is more, its hedging variants are much reconcilable with the current set of Brent futures and CFDs. Simultaneously, it needs to be said that the new Norwegian flagship-grade for heavy sour barresl is nowhere near Brent in terms of quality.

Johan Sverdrup is heavy sour crude, having 28°API and 0.7-0.8% Sulphur, whilst the average Brent quality would be within the 37-39° API density interval with some 0.3-0.5% sulphur. One might argue that the previous inclusion of grades like Forties has also changed the way the Brent basket is gauged, e.g.: the addition of Forties has paved the way for a sulphur de-escalator, a phenomenon previously unknown to the UK Continental Shelf. 

Much more at the linked article. 

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First Time

Norway Going Green? Never Mind; Energy Blog Of The Day -- July 2, 2021

Norway flips-flops: first it pivoted to green energy, now it backpedals to fossil fuel. LOL. Link to Felicity Bradstock. This is a huge and important study. Again, we're starting to see the widening gap between those who see reality and those who got caught up in the "moment." 

From the linked article:

Despite announcements last year that it is striving for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Norway has now said it will go full steam ahead in its oil ventures over the coming decades. While neighboring Denmark plans to end all North Sea operations by 2050, Norway, Western Europe’s largest oil producer, continues to offer exploration and production contracts to several companies, as it intends to develop its already well-established oil industry further. 
In a white paper, Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Tina Bru, stated that “The main goal of the government’s petroleum policy - to facilitate profitable production in the oil and gas industry in a long term perspective - is firmly in place.” 
This week, Norway’s oil majors announced they would be developing four oil and gas discoveries, at a cost of $1.69 billion, to increase output in the country’s existing oil fields. 
Equinor and Aker BP hope to tap into Norway’s remaining oil resources while demand is high, as after 50 years of oil production around half of the country’s oil reserves are yet to be pumped.  
The Kristin South project, which includes the Lavrans and Kristin Q discoveries, is awaiting ministry approval and is projected to have an output of 58.2 million barrels of oil equivalent over the field's lifetime. 
Equinor will operate the Kristin field, commencing production in 2024 and 2025. Petoro, Eni (-0.89%), and TotalEnergies (-0.39%) all have a stake in the field.  
Earlier this month, Norway awarded four new licenses in the Norwegian Sea and three in the Barents Sea, in frontier Arctic areas, to seven companies. One of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy’s key concerns is maintaining steady employment in the country, with around 200,000 jobs currently directly and indirectly linked to oil and gas.

Putting the Bakken in perspective: note that the Lavrans and Kristin Q discoveries are projected to have an output of around 60 million boe over the field's lifetime. The Bakken: that much oil in less than sixty days. 

So, back to the main story line. After announcing the country was going "green," someone must have run the numbers and noted that "green" won't work. So, back to fossil fuel. Gotta love it. And now that President Biden has ceded the Arctic to Russia, Denmark, and Norway, the latter needs to get crackin'.  

By the way, I wonder if President Biden understands this:

While Norway is leading the way in green energy at the national level, many are criticizing its high level of oil exports, which are anything but carbon friendly.

As country leaders talk of a ‘green transition’, it has not been overlooked that Norway still relies heavily on its oil and gas revenues even if looking to make the switch to renewables at home. 

Norway’s ambitious carbon-cutting targets do not consider the emissions from the oil and gas that it sells to other countries, meaning it could still achieve net-zero without curbing its fossil fuel production.

The bigger story here: Norway's faux environmentalists know that their exports contribute to CO2 emissions (FWIW) which tells me they are not truly concerned about global warming.

Ghost Kitchens -- Feature Blog Of The Day -- July 2, 2021

One of  the themes of the blog: the pandemic compressed 2020 - 2035 into 2020 - 2025.

Here's another example.

Ghost kitchens.

Apparently The New York Times introduced the term in 2015. 

The concept was chugging along. In 2020, the concept broke out and became mainstream.

"Ghost kitchens": anyone can create a "restaurant."
rent a commercial kitchen or rent space at a commercial kitchen;
create one's own menu; breakfast, lunch, dinner, or the whole shebang
come up with a name for your restaurant and create an award-winning web page
take orders and GrubHub, DoorDash, UberEats, etc.,  will deliver. 

Wiki here

This is incredibly clever. 

 
 
I personally don't care for most "delivered food." Delivered food seems not to travel well nor does it look particularly appealing when it arrives. There are exceptions. Pizza, for example. Perhaps "stir fry." But not sushi. Over time that, too, will get sorted out.

Notes From All Over -- Catching Up -- Part 1 -- July 2, 2021

Market:

  • NASDAQ and S&P 500 both hit new records.

Chariots on fire: wow, this is quite a story. Link here: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/six-figure-tesla-model-s-plaid-burst-into-flames-with-driver-inside-attorney-says. The social comments have it exactly right. One of the better comments:

Electric vehicles are a pipe dream of the radical left. They are not practical. They go for a couple hundred miles, then need to be recharged but you can't count on a charging station being nearby and it takes OVERNIGHT or longer to charge them. Plus, what you aren't told is that the cost of producing the electricity to run them makes them more expensive than a gas engine vehicle. Add in their utterly astronomical maintenance costs (just wait until you're told, "You need a new battery system, sir" by the guy at Pep Boys then see what the bill is) to their ridiculously high purchase price, then consider that only a handful of places are qualified to repair them ("Sir, we might possibly have your car back to you in 11 months....we have 306 vehicles in front of you") and, finally, contemplate the fact that many of them just burst into flames like this guy's did......and you'll never even consider buying one.

Earnings season: just yesterday I noted that "earnings season" seems to be 365/24/7. AMIRITE? Yesterday, first day of the new quarter, and Micron reports earnings. Micron reports huge earnings, up 129%; revenue surged 36%. On top of that, Micron has a 76 RS rating. Whoo-hoo.

Vultures swoop in: shadow lenders take over in the US shale patch. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova.

While traditional lenders are cutting their losses and de-risking energy loan portfolios, alternative capital providers are stepping up to scoop up U.S. energy debt at a discount and take part in debt or equity transactions that could give them returns sooner than a loan would for a bank. 

Coal is dead! Long live coal. Form the EIA, hardly a friend of coal. US coal consumption for 1Q21 jumped 13.5% from 4Q21. Electric power sector, of course, accounted for about 92% of this consumption. Link here

Fossil fuel still king of the hill: petroleum, natural gas, and coal accounted for almost 80% of total US energy consumption in 2020. 

Solar?
Doesn't even appear on the graphic. Who would have thought? Based on the amount of solar stories I see everyday, I would have thought solar power would have accounted for 75% of energy consumption in the US. LOL. Wind does show up but it's such a small sliver, I had to us a magnifying glass to "find" it. EIA publication here.

Norway flips-flops: first it pivoted to green energy, now it backpedals to fossil fuel. LOL. Link to Felicity Bradstock. Will post as a stand-alone later. This is a huge and important study. Again, we're starting to see the widening gap between those who see reality and those who got caught up in the "moment." 

Panic buying: yup, it's gonna happen. Fill your tanks today; by Monday, the service stations will be out of gasoline. Link here

Perfect timing: Williams' addition of gas marketer Sequent lifts midstream operator's LNG profile. Link here. If you can't build a pipeline, buy one.

Williams boosted its gas pipeline marketing footprint to more than 8 Bcf/d and increased its exposure to growing US LNG exports when it closed July 1 a deal to acquire Sequent Energy Management, North America's seventh-largest natural gas marketer. 

The operator of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line and other midstream infrastructure has been seeking to leverage its scale and relatively low capital requirements to maintain some of its assets.

It has also been focusing more heavily on its ties to natural gas and strong global economics, including wide price spreads, that are spurring robust deliveries of gas from the US Gulf Coast to Asia and Europe.

With Sequent, which moves gas through transportation and storage agreements on strategically located infrastructure, including Transco, Williams complements the geographic footprint of its core pipeline transportation and storage business. The addition also allows Williams to access new markets to reach incremental gas-fired power generation, in addition to LNG exports and future renewables opportunities.

Williams also sees additional ways with Sequent in the fold to source responsibly produced gas. Amid the global energy transition to greater use of cleaner-burning fuels, US shale faces an image problem, especially with climate-conscious buyers in Europe. Certifying gas as responsibly sourced, pursuing carbon capture and sequestration projects, and measuring and reporting the greenhouse gas intensity of emissions are ways US producers and midstream operators are increasingly responding to the challenge.

Williams' acquisition of Sequent from Southern Company included affiliate Sequent Energy Canada. Sequent focuses on asset management and the wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation of natural gas for gas utilities and producers.

In the latest S&P Global Platts North American marketer rankings , Sequent placed No. 7, based on the 7.1 Bcf/d of volumes marketed during the first quarter. That was an increase of 3% from the same period a year earlier. BP continued to top the list, even as it decreased its volumes marketed by 20% compared with Q1 2020. 

No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List Today -- July 2, 2021

US crude oil in storage: number of days of crude oil supply -- drops again -- now at 28 days. Link here

Europe: how's that renewable energy working out? Link here

  • Spanish day-ahead wholesale prices have hit a near 20-year high; trading at second highest ever;
  • just under 100 euros/ MWh; absolutely crazy prices;
  • European power and gas markets: in "utter chaos."
  • Spain: poster-child for solar energy some years ago

Ford sales: down almost 30% in June; chip shortage. 

Fireworks in the mideast? Link here

  • breakevens:
    • Saudi: $70 - $75
    • UAE: $50 - $55
    • Russia: $50 - $55

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Back to the Bakken


Active rigs
:

$75.36
7/2/202107/02/202007/02/201907/02/201807/02/2017
Active Rigs2311606758

No wells coming off the confidential list

RBN Energy: Will the SCOTUS ruling save the PennEast natural gas pipeline?

The developers of the embattled PennEast Pipeline project this week caught a big break: over the objections of the state of New Jersey and in contradiction to a prior lower court ruling, the Supreme Court said in a 5-4 decision on Tuesday that the project could exercise eminent domain in order to seize state-owned land necessary for building its 1.1-Bcf/d Appalachia takeaway pipeline. The ruling, while not a slam dunk for the pipeline’s completion, offers a ray of hope to a project that was all but dead for the past couple of years and that many had written off. It also represents an increasingly rare victory for the frequently vilified gas industry in the Northeast. The pipeline represents more capacity and greater optionality for producers in the northeastern Pennsylvania region who currently have limited takeaway options and are facing worsening pipeline constraints even as prices and downstream demand are taking off. Today, we provide an update on the PennEast project and its implications for the Appalachian gas market.