Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation | Washington County
Cecil Twp Supervisors Pull the Trigger on Frack Ban Via Setbacks
Let the lawsuits begin. Last night, three of five supervisors in Cecil Township (Washington County), PA, voted to ban all new fracking via a new setback (distance from well to nearest structure) requirement of 2,500 feet (see Cecil Twp About to Ban New Fracking – Will Other PA Towns Follow?). Contrary to what the left says, the new setback distance bans virtually all new shale drilling in the town. Voters in Cecil now know who to vote out of office, as the terms for those voting to ban fracking will come due over the next few years. Read More “Cecil Twp Supervisors Pull the Trigger on Frack Ban Via Setbacks”
CNX Resources filed a request with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in April 2023 to build two pipelines—two for natural gas—along a 13.9-mile route in Bell, Loyalhanna, and Salem Townships in Westmoreland County. An additional 4-mile pipeline would be built for water. Called the Slickville Trunkline Project, the DEP originally told CNX its application was “incomplete.” The DEP later told CNX (in March of this year) the agency considered the application “withdrawn” because it hadn’t received any more information (see 
Williams’ Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project expands the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. About 450,000 MMcf/d of the total capacity went online in late 2023 along Transco’s Leidy Line in Pennsylvania. Another 160 MMcf/d went online in PA and NJ in early July. On July 26, FERC granted Williams’s request to bring online the final 219 MMcf/d ahead of schedule (see 
Look for the steady flow of people moving out of Massachusetts to become a stampede. The state is floating new legislation that will outlaw the use of natural gas as energy. The first step is to block any new customers from connecting to gas. The next step is to forbid repairing gas infrastructure, forcing broken pipes to be replaced with alternatives like electricity or geothermal. Eventually, the liberal crazies running the state want to turn off all natural gas. We call it the clinical definition of insanity. Get out while you still can! 
The great folks at Steel Nation, headquartered in Canonsburg, PA, have built over 2,200 compressor stations and other structures for the oil and gas industry in the Marcellus/Utica (and beyond) over the past 17 years. Yesterday, Steel Nation announced it has launched a new division to build electric microgrids for companies looking to create their own on-site power plants to ensure their operations run efficiently 24/7/365. The new division, Steel Nation Microgrids, will work on projects from small 20 MW microgrid centers up to large hyperscale data centers that can require over a gigawatt of reliable on-site electricity to run AI facilities. This is exciting stuff! 
Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a report exposing the Biden administration’s massive green group giveaway (copy of the report below). The EPA received $41 billion from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), legislation made possible by Joe Manchin’s vote and signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 (see 
If you want the shale miracle to continue, if you want reliable energy supplies, and if you don’t want rolling, periodic blackouts, there is a clear choice of whom to vote for today. We’ve heard all the arguments against Donald Trump (and Kamala Harris). But honestly, there is only one candidate who supports real energy security for our country: Donald J. Trump. We’re not voting for a best friend. We’re not voting for a pastor. We’re not voting based on someone’s (bad) manners and (over)use of social media. We’re voting for a LEADER, for a President, for someone who will stand up for America (first, last, and always) and someone who truly, in his bones, supports the oil and gas industry. Today is the day. You MUST go out and vote if you haven’t already (we voted on the first day of early voting here in New York State). PLEASE make it a priority to vote. Don’t let anything keep you from the ballot box. Cast your ballot not for a friend or buddy but for the person who will proudly lead this great country over the next four years. 
Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania lost another rig, going from 13 rigs down to 12 rigs, the lowest that state has operated in the last 17 years (see 
In September, the Board of Supervisors for Cecil Township in Washington County, PA, caved to pressure from radical leftists and, by a vote of 3-2, instructed the town’s solicitor to prepare a new zoning ordinance that increases setbacks from “protected structures” from 500 feet to 2,500 feet (half a mile), and add a setback of 5,000 feet from schools and hospitals (almost a full mile, see 
DT Midstream (DTM), headquartered in Detroit, owns major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region and other regions like the Haynesville. DTM issued its third quarter 2024 update last week. Of high interest to us was the announcement that DTM is upsizing a previously announced project to connect its Stonewall Gathering System to Equitrans Midstream’s (now EQT) Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia, giving DTM customers the ability to reach Mid-Atlantic markets with their molecules. 
In May 2023, two radicalized Big Green groups—the Environmental Integrity Project (based in D.C.) and the Clean Air Council (based in Philadelphia)—filed a lawsuit against the Shell Polymers Monaca Plant (ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA), claiming the plant has repeatedly violated federal air pollution limits (see 
Since 2014, the share of U.S. electricity generation from natural gas in the summer has increased every year, increasing from 29% in 2014 to 45% in 2024 (see 
Almost overnight, the conversation concerning power use in the U.S. changed. For years and years, electric power demand has been fairly static. Then, seemingly from nowhere, came the rise of AI and data centers, which are power-hungry. A year ago, we weren’t talking about data centers. Now, hardly a day goes by without a story on MDN (in mainstream news!) about powergen and data centers/AI. We have another story on this topic, which illustrates the dramatic growth of data centers in the PJM region. 
Yesterday, two European companies announced separate deals for Coterra Energy to provide Marcellus natural gas to an unidentified LNG export facility that will liquefy and sell it to them. One company was commodities trader Vitol (based in Switzerland) and the other utility giant Centrica (based in the U.K.). Both deals were for 100 MMcf/d (or 100,000 MMBtus) each. The Vitol deal is for 11 years, and the Centrica deal is for 10 years. Combined, it represents 1.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus natural gas heading to other European and Asian countries.