Oral Arguments for Lawsuit re Shale Drill Cuttings at PA Landfill
In January 2024, MDN told you about a long-closed landfill that seeks to reopen in Liberty and Pine Townships in Mercer County, PA (see Group Claims Drill Cuttings for Grove City Landfill “Radioactive”). In 2020, Tri-County Landfill Inc. submitted a permit application for the construction and operation of a municipal waste landfill site operated from 1950 to 1990. One of the objections to reopening the landfill is that it may accept drill cuttings from fracked wells. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a permit to allow the project to proceed. The permit was challenged, and the challenge was rejected. Those who object to the landfill reopening appealed their rejected challenge to PA’s Commonwealth Court. The court heard oral arguments two weeks ago. Read More “Oral Arguments for Lawsuit re Shale Drill Cuttings at PA Landfill”
Last December, MDN told you that the future of what could become the country’s largest LNG export facility, Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2), was in question following a court order from the the leftwing U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (see 
Last week, two different quasi-governmental agencies, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), issued summer assessments for whether or not the country could experience problems with having enough electric power for this summer. Both assessments conclude the same thing: IF we don’t have any extreme weather events, and if unreliable renewable sources like solar and wind don’t crap out for an extended period, we’ll be fine. However, if we do have a hot spell or solar/wind fail, we’re in trouble. In particular, New England and the central part of the country from top to bottom are at most risk. However, even the PJM area could experience some problems. 
In February, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) creating the National Energy Dominance Council, directing the new council to move quickly to increase domestic oil and gas production (see 
West Virginia has more than 21,000 abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells. Plugging them to prevent environmental problems is a thorny issue, as it is in other states like Pennsylvania and Ohio (and Texas, and Oklahoma, etc.). Regulatory hurdles make it expensive. A WV bill not previously on our radar made its way through the legislature and was signed yesterday by Governor Patrick Morrisey: House Bill (HB) 3336. The bill (now law) makes it cheaper and faster to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells in the Mountain State. 
We spotted a story that got us thinking. Pennsylvania is the #1 exporter of electricity in the country, exporting some 26% of all the electricity it produces. Such exports give the state an opportunity to profit from building more gas-fired power, leveraging cheap Marcellus gas. However, exporting electricity is a complex issue. PA State Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill, Republican from York, PA, is sounding the alarm over the electricity exporting issue. She makes some great points… 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook last week, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA dropped its estimates for the Henry Hub spot price. The agency expects the HH price to average $4.10 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2025, $0.20 lower than last month’s forecast. However, EIA expects the annual average price in 2026 to be $4.80/MMBtu, which is $0.20 higher than last month’s forecast. EIA forecasts the Henry Hub spot price will average $4.20/MMBtu during the third quarter of 2025. 
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. 
Yesterday, MDN brought you the news that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) is laying the blame for a series of low-level earthquakes in southeastern Ohio on fracking at a shale well in Noble County (see 
In December, MDN told you that the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, proposed changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system first. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind (see 
Diversified Energy, with significant assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. One of the new ways Diversified is looking to make money with old wells is by mining cryptocurrency at wells in remote locations not hooked to a pipeline network. In March 2023, MDN told you that Diversified would try crypto-mining at a well in Elk County, Pennsylvania (see 
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the first step in the DOE’s “largest deregulatory effort in history,” proposing the elimination or reduction of 47 regulations that are driving up costs and lowering the quality of life for the American people. Once finalized, these actions (the list of all 47 is published below) will save the American people an estimated $11 billion and cut more than 125,000 words from the Code of Federal Regulations. These actions, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, “Zero-Based Regulation to Unleash American Energy,” advance President Trump’s promise to restore consumer freedom, lower costs, and unleash American energy dominance.