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2 Congressional Bills Would Target States, Municipalities for Bans

The Republicans in Congress have not wasted any time in addressing the ongoing tragedy of states (and municipalities) banning fracking or the right to choose which energy source (like natural gas) to use. We happened to spot details about two new bills just introduced in Congress, one by New York Rep. Claudia Tenney, which targets states like her own that ban fracking by denying the state federal funding as long as the ban remains in place. The other bill was introduced by West Virginia Senator Jim Justice (and Babydog!) along with Nick Langworthy (from NY) in the House to prohibit states or local governments from banning an energy service’s connection, reconnection, modification, installation, or expansion based on the type or source of energy to be delivered. Essentially, you can’t ban the use of natural gas either statewide or locally. Read More “2 Congressional Bills Would Target States, Municipalities for Bans”

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ICN Tries to Stoke Fear of “Radioactive” Frack Waste at PA Landfill

The propagandists at the partisan Inside Climate News are doing their best to plant the false notion that drill cuttings and frack wastewater coming from shale wells are “radioactive.” Their latest effort in this regard is to defeat the reopening of a landfill in Mercer County, PA. The Grove City landfill would accept drill cuttings (among other landfillable waste). The antis, who oppose all fossil energy based on mythical global warming concerns, label drill cuttings as “radioactive waste.” It’s nonsense. Drill cuttings are leftover rock and dirt from the ground. Read More “ICN Tries to Stoke Fear of “Radioactive” Frack Waste at PA Landfill”

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SRBC Approved 45 Shale Gas Well Pad Water Use Permits in April

The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its less functional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the May 31 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC renewed 45 general water use permits in April for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Blair, Bradford, Lycoming, Potter, Sullivan, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties in Pennsylvania. The director also approved new water withdrawals for the 146-megawatt gas-fired Hunlock Creek power plant in Luzerne County. Read More “SRBC Approved 45 Shale Gas Well Pad Water Use Permits in April”

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PennEnergy No Longer Wants Fracking Water from Big Sewickley Creek

In 2021, PennEnergy Resources made a request to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to withdraw up to 3 million gallons of water a day from Big Sewickley Creek (Beaver County) and one of its tributaries for shale fracking (see Dem PA Lawmaker Wants to Block Use of Creek Water for Fracking). After getting pushback, PennEnergy reapplied for a permit in 2022 to draw water, but this time, the request was cut in half to just 1.5 million gallons of water a day (see PennEnergy Reapplies to Use SWPA Creek Water for Fracking Ops). In 2024, the DEP finally approved the request for the lower withdrawal amount (see PA DEP Finally OKs Use of Big Sewickley Creek Water for Fracking). PennEnergy has now asked the DEP to cancel the permit. Read More “PennEnergy No Longer Wants Fracking Water from Big Sewickley Creek”

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Fracking Issue Causing PA Working Class Voters to Shift Right

According to opinion researchers at Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall College, the issue of fracking has deepened the schism between Democrats and Republicans in the Keystone State. Pennsylvania’s voter registration statistics have shifted rightward (from Democrat to Republican), which has been traced to shifts in the affiliation of working-class communities, particularly those located in the northeastern and southwestern parts of the state. New research offers a more direct cause for the shift: the decline of coal mining and the rise of shale gas development. Read More “Fracking Issue Causing PA Working Class Voters to Shift Right”

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Simultaneous Shale Well Completions Per Location Double in 10 Years

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that the average number of wells completed simultaneously (simul-frac’d) at the same location in the Lower 48 states has more than doubled, increasing from 1.5 wells in December 2014 to more than 3.0 wells in June 2024. By completing (fracking) multiple wells at once rather than sequentially, operators can accelerate their production timeline and reduce costs per well. Read More “Simultaneous Shale Well Completions Per Location Double in 10 Years”

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ODNR Says Fracking in Noble County, OH Caused Series of Earthquakes

A series of earthquakes (low level, sometimes felt, most of the time not felt) have hit Guernsey and Noble counties in eastern Ohio. According to the latest news we can find, some five quakes have hit since April 22, and another couple of quakes hit earlier in the year, in January/February. There is an existing fault line in the area, near Cambridge, known as the Burning Springs-Cambridge fault zone, formed more than 4.6 million years ago. So, earthquakes in the region are not unknown. The question is, why this most recent flurry? The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) claims it’s tied to oil and gas activity in the area. Read More “ODNR Says Fracking in Noble County, OH Caused Series of Earthquakes”

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Evolution’s Record-Breaking Marcellus Milestone Drilling EQT Well

Record-Breaking Milestone

Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in electric fracking (“e-fracking”) — using natural gas from the well pad instead of diesel fuel to power turbines that create electricity to drive fracking pumps. In a landmark achievement, EQT Corporation, the country’s second-largest natural gas producer, and Evolution Well Services, a leader in e-fracking, have set a new continuous pumping record in the Marcellus/Utica. Read More “Evolution’s Record-Breaking Marcellus Milestone Drilling EQT Well”

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New Study Compares Fracking’s Economic Impact on PA, NY Counties

click for larger version

The Marcellus Shale is a natural gas reserve in northeastern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York. Pennsylvania allows hydraulic fracturing, and thus produces gas, but New York has banned natural gas production from its share of the gas reserve. A special report, researched and published by the top-notch Heritage Foundation, evaluates the economic effects of hydraulic fracturing in PA and NY, using NY’s ban (2010 to present) as a natural experiment. Analyzing economic data from 2002 to 2022 and comparing NY’s counties as the treatment group against comparable PA counties as the control group, the authors estimate that NY’s ban resulted in the relevant NY counties losing out on around $11,000 per resident, or a staggering $27,000 per household. Read More “New Study Compares Fracking’s Economic Impact on PA, NY Counties”

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Environmental Left Nervous that DRBC Frack Ban May be Overturned

A month ago, MDN told you about a meeting held in northeastern Pennsylvania between newly-appointed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, several state elected officials, as well as labor and others (see Trump Admin Considers Strategies to Overturn DRBC Fracking Ban). Although several issues were discussed, the primary focus of the meeting was to discuss how to overturn the Delaware River Basin Commission’s (DRBC) illegal ban on fracking that denies Wayne and Pike County (PA) landowners the right to extract gas from beneath their land. Read More “Environmental Left Nervous that DRBC Frack Ban May be Overturned”

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Will Refracking Come to the Marcellus/Utica Region?

For at least a decade, MDN has brought you stories about refracs, also called re-entries and re-completions, where a driller re-enters an existing and declining well to access more rock and pump new life out of it (see our refrac stories here). Last July, we brought you an article about refracs, detailing the two main types, how they are handled, and why refracing is growing in popularity (see Refracs Becoming Common Practice for Oil & Gas Operators). While we’ve seen a few experiments with refracs in our region, are there signs that more of this activity could soon come to the M-U? Read More “Will Refracking Come to the Marcellus/Utica Region?”

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Driller Wins Briggs v SWN Rule of Capture/Trespass Resurrected Case

In January 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in THE most consequential lawsuit for Marcellus Shale drilling we’ve seen, a case called Briggs v Southwestern Energy (see HUGE NEWS: PA Supreme Court Keeps ‘Rule of Capture’ for Fracking). The PA Supreme Court ruled in favor of Southwestern, retaining the “rule of capture” in the Keystone State. In 2022, the Briggs family filed a new lawsuit, call it “Briggs 2,” along the same lines, alleging that Southwestern’s drilling and fracking on a neighboring property had intruded (“trespassed”) under the property line, draining gas from the Briggs property and injecting PFAS “forever chemicals” under their land (see Briggs v SWN Rule of Capture/Trespass Court Case Resurrected). The United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania recently ruled in favor of Southwestern (now Expand Energy) and against the landowner’s claims. Read More “Driller Wins Briggs v SWN Rule of Capture/Trespass Resurrected Case”

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$9.6M Renovation Coming to Salt Fork State Park, Thx to Fracking

Last week, MDN told you that fracking has begun under the park, and literally nobody noticed (see Drilling Begins Under Salt Fork State Park – “No Signs of Fracking”). The radical left has been stroking out over the prospect of drilling under (not on) Salt Fork and other state-owned parks and lands. The Big Green-backed Save Ohio Parks protested in Columbus earlier this month, wearing and using fossil fuels to protest fossil fuels and drilling under Ohio’s parks (see Antis Rally at OH Statehouse to Protest Fossil Fuels They Were Wearing). With the din of irrational antis now dying down comes word that Salt Fork State Park, Ohio’s biggest start park (in Guernsey County), is getting a $9.6 million makeover courtesy of the money the state received from the shale frackers who are now fracking underneath the park. Read More “$9.6M Renovation Coming to Salt Fork State Park, Thx to Fracking”

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SRBC Approves 6 Water Withdrawals for Shale Drilling at March Mtg

The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. On March 13, the SRBC board acted on 24 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, six of them approvals for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers receiving a green light from SRBC included Diversified Energy, EQT, JKLM, Repsol, and two requests for Expand Energy (under SWN or Southwestern Energy). Read More “SRBC Approves 6 Water Withdrawals for Shale Drilling at March Mtg”

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Drilling Begins Under Salt Fork State Park – “No Signs of Fracking”

The Allegheny Front, a leftwing “media” outfit in Western Pennsylvania (PBS reporters), published an article looking at how fracking has changed the “rural character” of Guernsey County, Ohio. The reporter took the recent start of drilling and fracking under Salt Fork State Park as an opportunity to write an article about the evils of fracking. Except, the reporter had this observation with respect to drilling happening right now under the park: “During a visit to Salt Fork State Park in December, there weren’t any visible signs of fracking. Of the few people who were there, two hunters said they didn’t know about fracking…” Exactly. Read More “Drilling Begins Under Salt Fork State Park – “No Signs of Fracking””

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Expand Energy Drilled 5.6-Mile Lateral in the WV Utica in 5 Days

Hart Energy reports that Expand Energy, formed by the combination of Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy, drilled a massive 5.6-mile lateral in northern West Virginia’s dry-gas Utica—and it was drilled in five days with just one bit run. Expand’s Shannon Fields OHI #3H well, located in Ohio County, WV, has a 29,687-ft lateral. We always get in trouble when we make statements like this (because some drillers don’t disclose details for their wells), but we’re pretty sure this is the longest onshore shale well lateral ever drilled in the U.S. Maybe even in the world! Read More “Expand Energy Drilled 5.6-Mile Lateral in the WV Utica in 5 Days”