| | |

PA Drillers/Pipelines Must Now Deal with 3 Protected Bat Species

Little brown bat

Bats are a big deal in the Pennsylvania Marcellus. Why? Drillers and midstreamers can’t cut down trees from April 1st through October 31st of each year for fear of killing a northern long-eared bat that may be roosting in one of those trees. The PA Board of Game Commissioners have just added two more bat species to the list, further complicating the issue.
Continue reading

| | | | |

Highland Begins Drilling New Injection Well in Trumbull Co., OH

Brookfield location in Trumbull County

MDN recently received a tip from a reader that Highland Field Services (subsidiary of Seneca Resources, which itself is a subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company) began drilling a new wastewater injection well in Brookfield (Trumbull County), Ohio. This is the third (of five) injection wells Highland has received permits to drill in Highland.
Continue reading

| | | | |

Antis Try to Convince Fed Court to Block Mountain Valley Pipeline

Equitrans’ (EQT Midstream) 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is now 70% built (see Shocker: Mountain Valley Pipeline Now 70% Built, Online by 4Q19). Even so, radicalized environmental groups are still trying to overturn and block it from beginning service via numerous lawsuits. One lawsuit in particular seeks to emasculate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in the process.
Continue reading

| | | |

Radicals Protest NatGas-Fired Electric Plant in Dutchess Co., NY

James Cromwell – gas protester (and actor)

We recently brought you the news of four supposedly grown men (in their 30s to 50s) engaging in criminal activity in order to block delivery of large gas turbines to the Cricket Valley Energy Center project in Dover (Dutchess County), NY (see 4 Protesters Arrested in CT for Blocking Gas-Fired Turbine Shipment). In what appears to be a Big Green organized protest, some of the same people who have protested other gas plant projects showed up to mouth off about the Cricket Valley project.
Continue reading

| | | |

Plugging Orphan O&G Wells May Economically Hurt WV Counties

MDN previously reported on efforts in both Ohio and Pennsylvania to plug orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells (all of them conventional/vertical wells), which present a health and safety issue. It’s all too easy to hit one of these old wells when drilling a new horizontal shale well. In WV, a new effort to plug old wells is causing concern for some–that the effort to plug old wells may inflict economic damage on WV counties. Huh?!
Continue reading

| | |

New England States Finally Waking Up re Domestic Natural Gas

It seems the rather thick-headed governors from New England have finally woken up and understand their resistance to new natural gas pipelines has placed them in a pickle. The region, when it gets really cold (like over the next few days), gets really short on natural gas. Prices soar, supplies diminish, and people not only pay high natgas prices, but high prices for electricity, which gets generated by natgas. The govs have a plan to slap a Band Aid on the problem.
Continue reading

Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jan 30, 2019

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Rig count slips to 14 in Ohio’s Utica; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Columbia Gas pledges to cover Merrimack Valley equipment repair costs; Lawsuits filed over Rhode Island natural gas outage; NATIONAL: Demand, regulatory headwinds seen slowing U.S. NGL export growth; Potential of AI-powered directional drilling.
Continue reading