14 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 16-22
New shale permits issued for Jan. 16-22 in the Marcellus/Utica included only 7 new permits in Pennsylvania, 5 new permits in Ohio, and 2 new permits in West Virginia–for a grand total of 14. The top recipient of permits for last week, scoring nearly half, was Coterra Energy (the former Cabot Oil & Gas), with 6 permits issued in northeastern PA’s Susquehanna County.
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Last week the Municipality of Murrysville, PA (in Westmoreland County, near Pittsburgh) voted to allow Olympus Energy to build a well pad on a property straddling the border with Plum Township. The well pad will eventually host eight shale wells. Olympus wants to begin drilling the wells either late this year or early next year. This is good news indeed!
Here’s a question: What are the 15 biggest (by company revenue) natural gas-owning pipeline companies in the world? The U.S. has the biggest natural gas pipeline infrastructure in the world, covering a distance of 333,000 kilometers (206,917 miles). Even so, only one U.S.-based company is in the top 5 biggest pipeline companies. Can you guess which country takes the top 2 spots on the list?
It hasn’t been a problem-free startup for the mighty Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, now called the Shell Polymers Monaca facility. We’ve noted some of the more prominent issues as we’ve spotted them in the news. Things like the plant exceeding allowed air emissions (see 
John Reinhart is the former President and CEO of M-U driller Montage Resources Corporation before that company was gobbled up by Southwestern Energy in 2020 (see
Yesterday Chesapeake Energy announced it has cut a deal to sell the majority of its Eagle Ford oil assets to WildFire Energy I LLC for $1.425 billion. The sale includes approximately 377,000 net acres and approximately 1,350 wells in the Brazos Valley region of its Eagle Ford asset, along with related property, plant, and equipment. In 2018 Chesapeake, under the direction of then-CEO Doug Lawler, purchased 420,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford shale and Austin Chalk formations in Texas from WildHorse Resource Development Corp for $4 billion (see 
We have two related lawsuits to report on involving landowners in Susquehanna County, PA, and Callon Petroleum. As most lawsuits are, these two are complicated. But, at a very high level, the concept is simple. The landowners allege that Callon Marcellus (formerly Carrizo Marcellus) shorted them on royalty payments. The landowners sued, but Callon sold its assets in northeastern PA (to BKV) and engaged in a shell game to move the proceeds of that sale ($74 million) directly to the mothership, Callon Petroleum, as a way of avoiding liability to pay, just in case they lose the royalty lawsuit.
The CEO of the largest natural gas driller/producer in the U.S., EQT’s Toby Rice, is currently attending the Atlantic Conference in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. He spoke with Bloomberg reporters about what he sees ahead for U.S. natural gas production coming this year and, more broadly, about the problems he sees in general. Rice said, “The gas markets in the US are broken.” Why? Lack of pipeline infrastructure and the inability to build new ones.

Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) is constructing a natural gas pipeline, a freshwater pipeline, and facilities to withdraw fresh water at a site along the Loyalsock Creek, north of Montoursville in Lycoming County, PA. The company’s work resulted in a sediment plume that appeared in Loyalsock Creek for several miles downstream of the construction site, caused by the failure of erosion and sediment controls following a heavy rainstorm. The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued notices of violation (NOVs) on three separate occasions from September to November (see