17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for OH-WV (Not PA) Jul 10-16
We’re trying not to sound too PO’d (personally offended) here, but once again, in what seems to be an every month or two occurrence, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) online oil and gas permitting database is throwing an error. So, we are left with no permit numbers for PA for the week of July 10-16. Neither the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) reporting system nor the West Virginia DEP reporting system have these problems. It is only the PA DEP that routinely goes “off the air.” Why is that? [Rant over] Even without PA’s numbers, OH and WV combined issued 17 permits last week, versus the pathetic 11 total from the prior week that included PA.
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Yesterday MDN brought you the news that a third-party contractor “struck a well head” on a Hilcorp shale well pad in Columbiana County, Ohio, resulting in a leak that forced the evacuation of 450 people within a mile of the well site (see 
Holy smokes! What just happened? For months (and months and months) the cumulative number of weekly permits issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica has fluctuated from the low teens to perhaps 30 total on the upper end. Last week, from Jan. 17-23, an amazing 61 permits were issued to drill new shale wells. Double the usual. Wow! Pennsylvania issued 24 new permits, Ohio issued 9, and blow-the-doors-off-we’ve-never-seen-so-many-permits-issued-in-one-week for West Virginia, the Mountain State issued 28 new shale permits.