"Build, Baby, Build" Is the Absolute Key to Appalachian Shale Opportunities and Our Energy Security

Guest post by Jim Willis of Marcellus Drilling News.

Yesterday, Hart Energy held its DUG Appalachia Conference and Expo in Pittsburgh. DUG stands for Developing Unconventional Gas. According to press accounts, folks were smiling, and the atmosphere was a lot more optimistic following Donald Trump’s crushing victory over The Cackler.

A number of Marcellus/Utica luminaries attended, including EQT Corp. CEO Toby Rice. In a keynote speech to attendees, Rice had one of (perhaps THE) most memorable lines of the day. He said, “We’re in a different world, and it’s not about drilling, it’s about ‘build baby, build,’ and we need more pipelines.”

"Pipe Stringing" by Michael Trolove is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

There’s a groundswell among the M-U shale industry (and those who support it) to get new pipelines built from our region to deliver our bountiful supply of methane molecules to other places that need them. The chorus to build new pipelines is growing MUCH louder, as illustrated by the following article from Pittsburgh Business Times reporter Paul Gough, who attended the event.

Appalachia’s natural gas industry will likely grow in the next decade thanks to the rise in liquified natural gas exports backed by President-Elect Donald J. Trump and what could be a tsunami of demand to power data centers and artificial intelligence.

Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia, the 16th annual event held in Pittsburgh, occurred with a lot more optimism than in recent years when the industry saw a lack of progress in building pipelines out of Pennsylvania’s gas fields and the crash in natural gas prices. While the low prices still continue, speakers Thursday were bullish.

EQT Corp. CEO Toby Z. Rice in a keynote speech in the afternoon said that while the United States was producing record numbers of energy in 2024, it wasn’t enough to meet the demand from allies around the world or to make it affordable in the United States, not to mention the coming demand from AI and data centers.

“It’s never been more important for us to produce energy in this country, but it’s never been more difficult,” Rice said.

Rice said the number of pipelines and other infrastructure to meet the energy demand hasn’t been enough, thanks to the opposition from environmentalists and opponents. And that, Rice said, has an impact on a lot of areas including national and international energy security, energy poverty around the world, and the fact that global greenhouse gas emissions are going higher for reasons that have nothing to do with the U.S. shale industry.

He noted that “drill baby, drill” was the mantra in the early days of the shale revolution, 20 years ago.

“We’re in a different world and it’s not about drilling, it’s about ‘build baby, build,’ and we need more pipelines,” Rice said.

LNG exports have already increased over the last several years, leaping the United States to the top of the heap in exporters. That’s even after the Biden administration paused new approvals of LNG export terminals.

The forecast increase of demand for electricity around AI and data centers will also benefit the natural gas industry, experts told DUG Appalachia.

“The demand is coming,” said Range Resources CEO Dennis Degner.

But Degner and Rice said it’s got to be easier to build energy infrastructure, whether it’s for natural gas and LNG or for solar and wind.

“My hope is we’ll see more support for permit reform, and I think it’ll have to happen,” Degner said.

Degner, whose Range Resources (NYSE: RRC) is one of the largest natural gas producers in Pennsylvania and 20 years pioneered the Marcellus Shale, doesn’t believe the industry will begin to grow beyond the steady-state production that has been the rule of the day for the publicly traded drillers for the past several days. But he and others think that demand for LNG and power for data centers and AI — which could be fulfilled by natural gas directly without going through the grid — will push up prices as well as lead to more drilling.

After four years of a Biden administration that made it more difficult for the fossil fuel industry, DUG Appalachia participants ticked off several other areas where a Trump administration will be much more friendly. That includes a new chair at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a rollback in environmental regulations including the challenge to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that is before the U.S. Supreme Court and could change regulatory scrutiny of the environmental impact of fossil fuel projects.

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