Coterra Spends $20,000 on Christmas Gifts for Kids in NE Pa.
Coterra Energy, along with several other companies active in the northeast Marcellus Shale, recently went on a shopping spree to buy gifts for kids in northeastern Pennsylvania. Coterra organized a shopping trip that saw workers from Coterra and other organizations spend a cumulative $20,000 on Christmas gifts. The gifts are being distributed by Interfaith, an ecumenical religious organization (think Salvation Army) that offers “help and hope” to residents in northeastern PA. It’s been our observation that this largesse on the part of Coterra and other affiliated companies operating in northeastern PA is not some one-time PR stunt. Coterra does this year after year after year. And not just at holiday time. Hats off to George Stark, Bill desRosiers, and the great crew at Coterra for the work they do in the local community.
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Last week (Dec. 12-18), the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica bumped up nicely to 32, up from the prior week’s 20. Both Pennsylvania and Ohio issued 16 new shale permits each. West Virginia got skunked and issued none.
Kevin Sunday, director of government affairs with the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, recently published an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette pointing out how the mighty Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA, is the result of business and government (bipartisan government) working together. He makes the case that we need more of this type of thing, especially with many new faces coming to Harrisburg in January. We frankly wonder if hoping for bipartisan cooperation on fossil energy projects in the current political climate is just spitting in the wind.
It took us a while to track down this story, but we finally have details about the settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by roughly 60 landowners in Fayette County, PA, against Chief Exploration and Development, the former drilling arm of Chief Oil & Gas (now called Cyprus Exploration and Development). The lawsuit alleged that in 2008, Chief and its landman had cut a deal to lease the landowners’ property and then never paid the stipulated signing bonus. The lawsuit sought $7 million. The landowners ended up settling for $5.5 million earlier this month.
Unlike the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), which gets the creepy crawlies at the mere mention of the word “fracking,” the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) has been dealing with fracking and water requests for use in fracking for more than a decade. Somehow the SRBC, a quasi-governmental agency (as is the DRBC), manages to allow fracking, and there are NO negative impacts on local water and NO negative impact on the Susquehanna River and its tributaries. Must be the people who run the SRBC are just more talented than those who run the DRBC.
Yesterday, Washington Gas (a local gas utility in D.C. and surrounding suburbs) announced it is taking “the next step” in the company’s commitment to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions. That step is to use more Marcellus gas! Except the gas it will use (sell to customers) has been certified as responsible gas by the MiQ standard. Washington Gas is buying its certified Marcellus gas from Chesapeake Energy and Antero Resources.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a notice of violation (NOV) to Shell Chemicals Appalachia, LLC (Shell) for exceeding its rolling 12-month total emission limits of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which happened during the commissioning of its cracker plant facility in Beaver County. Shell is limited by state permits to 516.2 tons of total emissions of VOCs over a rolling 12-month period. It had 521.6 tons by the end of September and 662.9 tons of VOCs by the end of October. The emissions are associated with the initial startup of the facility and (hopefully) won’t happen again.
Hydrogen energy is the new savior that will keep the world from toasting itself out of existence. So goes the current faddish meme. But not just any old hydrogen (or H2) can be used. No, no, no! Hydrogen has to be “low carbon” hydrogen (i.e. produced by means that is low or no-carbon), or it is persona non grata. It reminds us of when “low fat” was all the rage in diets–until it wasn’t. But we digress… The Open Hydrogen Initiative (OHI) was convened earlier this year to measure and map the emissions footprint of “clean” (low or no-CO2) hydrogen. Earlier this week, a number of prominent energy companies joined OHI, including EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (focused 100% on the Marcellus/Utica).
Earlier this week, MDN brought you news of a new vision from CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis called “Appalachia First” (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you the great news that Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) would be allowed to restart drilling in a nine-square-mile area in Dimock, PA (Susquehanna County) following a “no contest” plea deal with PA’s bullying Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, on a misdemeanor charge (see 
In 2020, EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), sold *all* of its Marcellus assets, which were located in Bradford County, PA, to Tilden Resources for $130 million (see 
For all of you Paul Harvey fans (God rest his soul), this is, “The Rest of the Story.” Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, about to become Governor on Jan. 1 (a bona fide tragedy), made a big splash by announcing he had finally bullied Coterra Energy, the former Cabot Oil & Gas, into taking a plea deal in the infamous Dimock, PA case of methane migration into a few water wells (see 
Each year oil and gas supermajor BP (formerly British Petroleum), one of the largest oil companies in the world, publishes an annual Statistical Review of World Energy. We typically bring you a copy with analysis, as we did for the 71st annual edition published in July of this year, covering 2021 (see