17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Apr 8 – 14
Two weeks ago, for April 1 – 7, there were eight new permits issued (see 8 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Apr 1 – 7). However, all eight were issued in Pennsylvania. Both Ohio and West Virginia failed to issue any new permits two weeks ago. Fortunately, that changed last week. For the week of April 8 – 14, there were 17 new permits issued. Seven of those permits were issued in Pennsylvania, with the vast majority going to EQT (six permits, all in Greene County). Ohio issued four new permits last week, all of them to oil driller Encino Energy for Carroll County. West Virginia issued six new permits, with four going to EQT in Marion County and two going to Southwestern Energy in Brooke County.
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Over the past seven-plus years, BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American arm of Banpu (96% owned by Banpu, Thailand’s largest coal mining company), has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV originally entered the American shale sector by investing $500 million in 2016-2017 to buy existing Marcellus wells and acreage in northeast Pennsylvania. Then the company went wandering into other shale plays (see 
Exactly a year ago, MDN brought you the good news that a company based in Houston, Texas called Encina (not to be confused with Encino Energy, which drills for natural gas and oil in Ohio) was proposing to build a $1.1 billion plastics recycling plant along the Susquehanna River in Northumberland County, PA — about 60 miles north of Harrisburg (see 
LS Power, headquartered in New York City, has developed or acquired 47,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation, including utility-scale solar, wind, hydro, battery energy storage, and natural gas-fired facilities. We’ve previously mentioned LS Power in a number of MDN articles (
According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, U.S. power sector natural gas demand set another record high in the first quarter and has remained higher year over year into April. Demand from the power sector for natural gas totaled 32.7 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) in the first quarter of 2024, up 2 Bcf/d from the first quarter of 2023. The trend has continued into April. Gas demand from power plants averaged 30.8 Bcf/d from April 1-18, which is 2.1 Bcf/d higher than the same period of 2023. However, whether the trend will continue through the rest of the year is an open question.
A local community receiving a federal grant of $14 million (arranged by a local Congressman) to improve natural gas infrastructure, like replacing worn-out gas pipes, is a fairly common occurrence across most of the country. But it’s not a common occurrence when the community receiving the grant and doing the work is located in New York State — a state that is utterly hostile to even a single square inch of new natural gas infrastructure. That’s what makes this story so unusual, so “man-bites-dog” in nature. Bath and Woodhull (both in Steuben County, NY) are receiving a combined $14 million to replace nearly 18 miles of natural gas pipelines.
Bloomberg is reporting that White House officials have restarted discussions about potentially declaring a national “climate emergency” in order to unlock sweeping federal powers in order “to stifle oil development.” Yeah, you read that right. The Bidenistas want to destroy the U.S. oil industry. Declaring an emergency would grant the president sweeping powers that “could be used to curtail crude exports, suspend offshore drilling, and curb greenhouse gas emissions.” These radicals are over-the-top drunk on power. They are authoritarian (Communist) to their core. They are the opposite of what this country was founded on — freedom.
NATIONAL: Biden moves to make conservation an equal to industry on US lands; DOE invests $8 million for projects to advance carbon capture tech; INTERNATIONAL: Scotland ditches 2030 climate target to cut emissions by 75%; Shell urges investors to reject shareholder group’s climate demands; US confirms reimposition of oil sanctions against Venezuela; Updated transit levels at Panama Canal don’t faze LNG shippers.