PA DEP Emergency Plugs 2 Conventional Gas Wells in SWPA This Week
Yesterday, both Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued the same press release (below) to announce the DEP has begun an emergency project to plug two leaking abandoned conventional natural gas wells in Scott Township, Allegheny County. A DEP-appointed contractor will begin plugging work today. The DEP is using emergency plugging funds even though the owner of both wells is known and, in fact, owns 268 wells in the region.
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Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw recently announced the introduction of legislation to repeal the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax enacted through an executive order by the Wolf Administration in 2019. RGGI, a multi-state compact, would increase electricity rates for PA consumers, cut energy and manufacturing jobs, and lead to the closure of Pennsylvania power plants. It would be an unmitigated disaster for the Marcellus industry. PA Republican Senators sued to block the measure and won in Commonwealth Court. Current Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro then appealed the lawsuit to the PA Supreme Court, where it still sits (see 
Last November, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG), a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced a deal to enter the Utica Shale (see 
TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, is a huge pipeline company headquartered in Canada. TC owns and operates the Columbia Gas Transmission and Columbia Gulf Transmission pipeline systems in the Marcellus/Utica region. Yesterday, TC announced that it plans to move its regional headquarters from Kanawha City (a neighborhood in Charleston, WV) to downtown Charleston and build a new $60 million building in the process. TC said the existing 110,000-square-foot former CASCI building will be demolished and replaced with a new building, with construction expected to be complete in 2025 and employees moving in by 2026.
The pressure on Joe Biden to renounce his so-called pause on approving new LNG export projects is growing white-hot intense. On Friday, Jan. 26, Biden announced he has put “a temporary pause on pending decisions of Liquefied Natural Gas exports” (see 
There is a mountain of controversy over Biden’s pause on approving new LNG export permits to non-free-trade countries (see our story today, Intense Pressure on Biden from All Sides to End LNG Approval Pause). Even though the Dept. of Energy (DOE) has said it will not issue any new export permits for the next year for the 17 projects currently in the pipeline that have requested such permits (while it conducts a so-called review), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will likely continue to work on those projects.
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