The Marcellus/Utica region received 28 new drilling permits last week, August 31 – September 6, down from the 39 permits issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania issued 11 of the new permits. Ohio issued 12 new permits. And West Virginia issued 5 new permits. The drillers who received new permits last week were: EOG Resources, Expand Energy, Greylock Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, and Range Resources. Read More “28 New Shale Well Permits Reported for PA-OH-WV Aug 31 – Sep 6”
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (Warren Buffett’s company), got the last piece of paper it needed yesterday for an important new pipeline project. FERC’s Office of Energy Projects issued a notice to proceed (NTP) on Sept. 10, authorizing EGTS to start building the Appalachian Reliability Project (ARP) — the 550,000 dekatherms/day expansion that will push more Marcellus and Utica gas from western Pennsylvania into Ohio. Even better, the approval comes in roughly six months ahead of the company’s own published timeline. Read More “Buffett’s EGTS Gets FERC OK to Build 550 MMcf/d PA-OH Expansion”
Aligned Data Centers and community partners mark the groundbreaking of Project Phoenix in Shippingport, Pennsylvania.
It’s official — shovels are in the ground. On Thursday, Aligned Data Centers announced it has broken ground on “Project Phoenix,” a 2 gigawatt (GW), three-building data center campus on the grounds of the former Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Beaver County, PA. MDN has tracked this story since the July 2025 Pittsburgh energy summit, where the Shippingport site was one of the marquee projects announced (see below). The new details: Aligned quietly bought 650 acres from Frontier Group of Companies in July for $223 million; the campus will run on its own on-site, natural gas-fired power rather than the PJM grid; and Atlanta-based Holder Construction, with Carnegie, PA-based Kokosing Industrial as general contractor, will handle construction. Aligned pegs the regional economic impact at $10 billion, with 3,000 construction jobs and roughly 640 permanent positions. Marcellus gas will feed the whole thing. Read More “Aligned Breaks Ground on $10B, 2 GW Data Center in Beaver County”
Duke Energy just handed Marcellus/Utica producers something more useful than another press release. It handed us a calendar. Back in July we told you Duke had picked its sites: two 1,360-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle gas plants on its Davie County, North Carolina parcel, and the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facility in company history directly across the Yadkin River in Davidson County (see Duke Picks Davie County for 2 Gas Plants, Davidson for LNG Facility). What we didn’t have was a schedule. Now we do. Read More “Duke Sets 2028 Construction Start for NC Gas Plants, LNG Facility”
Round and round she goes. Yesterday Shell Energy North America (SENA) announced it is doing two deals at once: selling the 609-megawatt (MW) Rhode Island State Energy Center (RISEC) near Providence to Constellation Energy for $715 million, and buying the 169-MW Hunlock Creek Energy Center in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from Castleton Commodities International (CCI). Shell has owned the Rhode Island plant for all of about 20 months. CCI has owned Hunlock Creek for two years. Both deals are expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending the usual regulatory blessings. Read More “Shell Sells R.I. Gas Plant for $715M, Buys Marcellus Plant in NEPA”
A month ago, we took a press release that pointedly refused to name a county, did some division on a tax-assessment number buried in the fine print, and concluded that Alpha Compute Corp.’s (Nasdaq: ALP) proposed 200-megawatt gas-fired AI data center was headed for Tioga County (see MDN Sleuths Out Location of New 200 MW PA Gas Data Center Project). Yesterday, Alpha Compute said it out loud. Tioga County it is. But the confirmation isn’t the real news here. The real news is that the people selling the land and minerals have agreed to finance $47 million of the $55 million purchase price themselves. Read More “MDN Was Right: Alpha Compute Data Center Is in Tioga County”
NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures edge higher; Enbridge to acquire Tallgrass pipelines for $2.55B; EPA removes online Scope 3 emissions guidance for companies; United States on track for record crude oil production in 2026; AI data center boom pushes U.S. power equipment to the breaking point; INTERNATIONAL: Oil soars as Hormuz risks rattle markets. Read More “MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Sep 11, 2026”