Allegheny County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Merrion Oil & Gas | Pennsylvania | Regulation
Town Revokes Permit to Drill Shale Well at Pittsburgh Steel Mill
In early 2018 MDN told you that Pittsburgh’s oldest still-operating steel mill, U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson steel mill, is looking to drill shale wells on its property in order to supply natgas for the mill (see Marcellus Wells to be Drilled at Pittsburgh’s Oldest Working Steel Mill). Following delays from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in ironing out permit conditions, the local town zoning board has capriciously revoked a conditional use permit that allows the wells to be drilled.
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There’s no getting around the fact that the Marcellus/Utica region, collectively called Appalachia, is THE 800-pound gorilla when it comes to natural gas production. We produce more natgas than any other region of the country–more than twice as much as the next highest producer, the oily Permian Basin. Yet the Haynesville Shale, a gas-focused play located in Louisiana, also produces a lot of natgas (about 36% of what the M-U produces). According to recent research by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), new wells in the Haynesville are more productive (producing more gas on average) than new wells drilled in the M-U. Huh.
On Monday Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) scored a major victory at the U.S. Supreme Court with a decision that allows the project to drill and install pipe underneath the Appalachian Trail (see 
Earlier this week Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced an indictment of Cabot Oil & Gas for allegations of methane migration going back more than a decade (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: ‘Desperate’ to get natural gas out of Appalachia, pipeline builders face long battle; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: WE Energies eyes Ixonia for gas storage facility; Officials want emails with climate activists and private lawyers kept from public; NATIONAL: US shale companies to boost oil output by 500,000 bpd by month-end; INTERNATIONAL: Why natural-gas prices haven’t yet bottomed despite this year’s 20% drop; U.S. is the surprising winner in China’s LNG market; Saudi oil exports to U.S. plunge toward lowest level in 35 years.