Antis Near Pittsburgh Demand Hearing on Plan to Drill 2 Wells
A profoundly biased and inaccurate article published by Environmental Health News attempts to paint two proposed shale gas wells as an environmental disaster and existential health threat akin to a nuclear meltdown. The article is so over the top it’s laughable–but instructive nonetheless. Apex Energy has proposed drilling two wells on a pad in a rural part of Trafford, PA township, straddling Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. The location is “within one mile of Level Green Elementary School and within two miles of 12,733 residents in Penn Township and Trafford Borough (about 17 miles east of Pittsburgh).” Are the kiddies at nearby schools and residents of Trafford really in danger?
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On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee approved a letter to the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC), asking the IRRC to oppose the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an obscene carbon tax aimed at closing down coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the state. Democrats on the committee railed against the vote calling it meaningless when they know it’s anything but. If the IRRC turns against RGGI, the left’s carbon tax scheme will die.
It’s been our observation since beginning to write about the shale energy space in 2009 that every year or two most drillers, at least the publicly traded drillers, issue new notes (what we call IOUs) to pay off already-issued notes coming due within a few years. And if there’s any money left over from the new tranch of notes issued, they use it to pay down other debts or “for other corporate purposes.” The latest swap-new-notes-for-old-notes comes from a major Marcellus/Utica driller, Southwestern Energy, which last week floated $1.2 billion of new notes to help pay off what amounts to $1.4 billion of older notes coming due in the next few years.
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles the transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We keep an eye on its performance as an indicator of whether there is more or less drilling happening in the M-U. For over a year, it’s been less. In 2020 Nuverra’s revenue sank by 34% and the rig count that it tracks fell by 27% (see 
It’s been hard to miss the recent “the sky is falling” report issued by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Mainstream media has been in the throes of multiple orgasms over the 
The latest weekly Enverus U.S. rig count shows total rigs in use hitting a new post-pandemic high. For the week ending August 19, the rig count stood at 624, up 7 rigs from the previous week. That’s yet another new rig count high since April 2020. The Marcellus play regained a rig it lost from the previous week, while the Utica stayed even for a second week in a row. Collectively the M-U is currently running 45 rigs, up one rig from the previous week.
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