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24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Feb 3 – 9

For the week of Feb 3 – 9, the number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica to drill new shale wells remained healthy. Two weeks ago, 22 new permits were issued. Last week, the number increased to 24 new permits issued. The Keystone State (PA) issued 11 new permits last week. Nine permits went to Range Resources for two pads in Washington County. One permit each went to Snyder Brothers and EQT in Armstrong and Greene counties, respectively. Read More “24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Feb 3 – 9”

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3 State Senators Intro Bill to Allow Fracking in….Maryland!

Something is going on in the State of Maryland. Last week, we told you that the Democrat leadership in the Maryland state legislature was pushing a bill that would rechristen gas-fired power as “green” and make it easier to build new gas-fired power plants in the state (see Maryland Dems Open Door for Gas-Fired Power Plants, Call it “Green”). Now comes word that three Republican State Senators have introduced a bill getting serious attention in committee, a bill that would overturn the state’s ban on shale fracking. Read More “3 State Senators Intro Bill to Allow Fracking in….Maryland!”

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PA Gov.’s Carbon Tax Plan for Gas Power Blocking New Projects

Yesterday, MDN told you that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a “fast-track” plan from the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection (which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV) to change how the grid operator decides which new power plants can connect to the system first (see FERC Approves PJM Plan to Fast-Track New Gas-Fired Power Plants). The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind. The problem is that new gas-fired power plants that will come to the front of the line in PJM states will not be built in Pennsylvania but in other states like Ohio and West Virginia. Why? Read More “PA Gov.’s Carbon Tax Plan for Gas Power Blocking New Projects”

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PA Gov. Sues Trump Admin for Pausing $2B in Energy-Related Payments

What Elon Musk’s audits of federal money payments to NGOs, states, and individuals are finding is beyond shocking. It’s criminal. There is MASSIVE fraud happening across all of government. As you’ll read in another post today, Lee Zeldin, Trump’s new EPA Administrator, found $20 BILLION in money transfers from the EPA to a bank the Biden people affected just before leaving. It is perhaps the biggest theft of money in history! The Biden folks called it “throwing gold bricks off the Titanic.” This is stuff people should go to jail for for the rest of their lives. President Trump put a pause on the transfer of money from certain programs (not Medicare, not Medicaid, not payments to individuals). The pause has Democrats, like PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, squealing like pigs being weaned from mother’s milk. Shapiro filed a lawsuit to force the return of mother’s milk. Typical. The Dems are spending junkies. Read More “PA Gov. Sues Trump Admin for Pausing $2B in Energy-Related Payments”

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EPA Discovers Illegal $20 Billion Transfer from Biden’s Final Days

Two months ago, a video circulated on social media featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about “tossing gold bars off the Titanic,” intentionally rushing to get billions of tax dollars recklessly out of the agency before Inauguration Day. The EPA’s new sheriff, Lee Zeldin, has located $20 billion of those gold bars sitting at a bank. The money is meant to fund radical anti-Trump efforts related to the environment. Zeldin is demanding the money be returned pronto. Read More “EPA Discovers Illegal $20 Billion Transfer from Biden’s Final Days”

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EPA Close to Axing Rule That Regulates CO2 & Methane as Pollution

President Trump is close to taking an ax to the root of an EPA regulation that has allowed leftist environmentalists to rule the roost for the past 15 years. In 2009, the EPA adopted a major regulatory rule called the “endangerment finding.” The finding concluded that six so-called greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) — constitute an endangerment to public health and welfare due to their contribution to global climate change. The finding gives the EPA the power to regulate those gases under the umbrella of the Clean Air Act. Trump intends to overturn the finding, which would take down all the greenhouse rules for CO2 and methane. Read More “EPA Close to Axing Rule That Regulates CO2 & Methane as Pollution”

Other Stories of Interest: Fri, Feb 14, 2025

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Shell, API partner with CCBC to enhance process tech education center; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Duke Energy removes climate language as it builds more gas plants; NATIONAL: Utilities want to power Big Tech’s AI ambitions with natural gas; Expand Energy new EVP of marketing & commercial; New GOP Congress podcast features talk about fracking; Trump nominates president of Western Energy Alliance to head BLM; EIA natural gas storage draw of -100 Bcf exceeds estimates; Why oil producers are hesitant despite Trump’s push to “drill, baby, drill”; Chevron to lay off up to 20% of global workforce; INTERNATIONAL: Elliott pushes big cost cuts at BP to preserve its independence; Petroleum liquids supply growth driven by non-OPEC+ countries in 2025/26; Trump’s tariff threats spur ‘mature conversation’ in N.S. on lifting fracking, uranium bans; The potential for U.S. LNG to help meet Indian demand; Energy cooperation connects Israel with Islamic nation; Giant gas field discovered under UK that ‘could fuel the country for a decade’. Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Fri, Feb 14, 2025”

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New Lithium-from-Brine Plant Coming to Northeast Pa. Marcellus

A new player is entering the Marcellus looking to extract lithium from shale brine (wastewater), and it’s doing it in a big way in Susquehanna County in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania. Avonlea Lithium Corporation, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Rain City Resources Inc., will provide its newly-tested technology to Kendra II, based in Springville, PA, to provide an on-site plant to extract lithium from Marcellus brine. The new plant will be set up and operating by April 2025. Read More “New Lithium-from-Brine Plant Coming to Northeast Pa. Marcellus”

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Big Turnover at EQT Board – Chairwoman, 3 Others Leaving (4 of 14)

Tom Karam to become EQT Chairman of the Board

Something of surprise (at least for us) is that four EQT Corporation board of directors members, including the board’s chairwoman, are “retiring” and leaving the board. That’s four out of 14 board members (28%, over one-fourth). Is it a bloodbath? Widespread unrest? House cleaning? No, we don’t suspect any of those things. It may be a coincidence that four members have decided to leave as of the next annual meeting, which has not yet been set, or it might not be a coincidence. The new independent chairman of the board will be Thomas Karam. Sound familiar? Tom was the CEO of Equitrans Midstream Corporation, the company that built Mountain Valley Pipeline. EQT bought out Equitrans and merged with it in July 2024. Karam came to the board last year when the companies merged. Read More “Big Turnover at EQT Board – Chairwoman, 3 Others Leaving (4 of 14)”

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Feb. STEO Revises Predicted 2025 Natural Gas Price Avg Up by 23%

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA said the natural gas price at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub is expected to average $3.80 per million British thermal units (MMBtus) in 2025—up about 23% from its January forecast ($3.10). EIA also raised its estimate for 2026, putting the annual average price at $4.20 MMBtus, up 5% compared with $4.00 in its January report. Read More “Feb. STEO Revises Predicted 2025 Natural Gas Price Avg Up by 23%”

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PA Game Commission Shows How to Manage Gas Royalty Ups & Downs

The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) owns and manages more than 1.5 million acres of state game lands throughout the Commonwealth. The primary purpose of these lands is the management of habitat for wildlife and providing opportunities for lawful hunting and trapping. You might think PGC gets most of its revenue from hunting and trapping licenses and fees. You would be wrong. PGC allows shale drilling on some of its vast holdings, and leases and royalties generate 39% of the income for PGC (as of 2024). The problem (if you can call it a problem) is that royalty revenue from shale for the PGC varies widely from year to year. For example, the revenue flowing to PGC from shale during its last fiscal year decreased by a whopping 46%. But the PGC was ready. The way the PGC prepares for those wild swings is instructive for all landowners. Read More “PA Game Commission Shows How to Manage Gas Royalty Ups & Downs”

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FERC Approves PJM Plan to Fast-Track New Gas-Fired Power Plants

In December, MDN told you the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, proposed new changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system first. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind (see New PJM Policy Favors Gas-Fired Power Over Solar & Wind). The change comes in response to the rapidly increasing demand for more electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence computing. PJM’s gas-favoring policy change rankled the environmental left. According to green grifters, the PJM proposal unfairly allows gas-fired projects to “jump the queue” ahead of unreliable renewables. Good news: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just approved the PJM plan to build new gas-fired plants faster. Read More “FERC Approves PJM Plan to Fast-Track New Gas-Fired Power Plants”

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Will This be the “Decade of Geothermal Energy” Under Trump 2.0?

Geothermal energy has been called the ‘redheaded stepchild’ of renewable energy. Lefties have a love/hate relationship with geothermal energy. Geothermal uses the same identical drilling rigs, drills the same holes in the ground, and even uses the same fracking technology used to drill shale oil and gas wells. But drilling and fracking for geothermal is righteous and clean and pure as wind-driven snow (for the left), while drilling and fracking for oil and gas is evil, Satanic, and destroying the environment. The left tolerates geothermal because it’s not fossil energy. Momentum for geothermal is growing, and money is beginning to pour in, according to Cindy Taff, CEO of geothermal company Sage Geosystems. Read More “Will This be the “Decade of Geothermal Energy” Under Trump 2.0?”

Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Feb 13, 2025

OTHER U.S. REGIONS: CA Republicans urge Trump admin to fight state’s attack on natural gas; NATIONAL: How Donald Trump has turned the Green Movement on its head; Tariffs or no tariffs, the world wants and needs America’s natural gas; Automakers look to pass gambling debts on to taxpayers; INTERNATIONAL: WTI dips below $72 as US-Russia talks shift outlook; Mexico energy chiefs call for 50% increase in natgas production by 2030; LNG is a sellers market for now; European energy industry urges EU not to cap gas prices. Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Feb 13, 2025”

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PA Judge Says Mariner East Pipe Didn’t Have Eminent Domain 12 Yrs Ago

A Washington County, PA, judge is closing the barn door about 12 years late. On February 7, Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brandon P. Neuman ruled Sunoco Pipeline, LLC (i.e., Energy Transfer) did not have the eminent domain authority to take property for the Mariner East Pipelines in 2013 from Bradley and Amy Simon (in Washington County), and possibly many other property owners. The case alleges that while ME gained eminent domain authority later, when the company negotiated with the Simons (and potentially others), it did not have that legal authority, yet it claimed it did. The Simons signed a lease they otherwise would not have signed if they had full information. They either would not have signed, or perhaps negotiated a bigger payment. That’s the gist of the story—that ME fraudulently presented claims. Read More “PA Judge Says Mariner East Pipe Didn’t Have Eminent Domain 12 Yrs Ago”

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CNX Data Shows “No Material Impact” to Air & Water from Drilling

CNX Resources’ Radical Transparency™ program is a first-of-its-kind public-private collaboration announced between CNX and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in November 2023 (see CNX Signs Deal with PA Gov. to Increase Setbacks, Other Changes). We’re no fans of Josh Shapiro, a guy who repeatedly attacked the Marcellus industry when he was Attorney General, but sometimes you do a deal with the devil to make a point. We think CNX bested Shapiro with its deal. CNX released its first Radical Transparency™ assessment report in August 2024 (see Independent Monitoring of CNX Ops Shows No Public Health Threat). The initial results of nine months of continuous air emissions monitoring at natural gas well sites and compressor stations in southwestern Pennsylvania indicated that CNX natural gas development poses no public health risk. Yesterday, CNX CEO Nick Deluliis told the Department of Environmental Protection’s Citizens Advisory Council that a year and a half of air and water monitoring shows “no material impact” to air or water quality from its natural gas development operations.

Read More “CNX Data Shows “No Material Impact” to Air & Water from Drilling”