Upper Burrell Twp Makes Moves to Ban Wastewater Injection Wells
Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County, PA) town supervisors have historically been receptive (or at least tolerant) to the Marcellus Shale industry that has so blessed their town and Westmoreland County (see our Upper Burrell stories here). According to MDN’s soon-coming data service, Upper Burrell has 20 actively producing shale wells, with 17 of them drilled since 2021. However, there appears to be a distinct change in attitude, at least with respect to wastewater injection wells, on the part of the town’s Board of Supervisors. The town has between 100 and 200 abandoned conventional gas or oil wells. The supervisors are concerned one or more of those old wells might be targeted to convert into injecting brine (salty water from shale wells). The supervisors have instructed the town solicitor to draft an ordinance with stricter rules for the use of abandoned wells in the township. Read More “Upper Burrell Twp Makes Moves to Ban Wastewater Injection Wells”


Two pipeline industry titans are going after each other again. Energy Transfer and Williams previously tangled over an aborted proposed merger, a saga that stretched from 2015 until it was finally settled in 2023 (see
In January 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, an extremist, floated a plan to ban natural gas hookups in every single new home and business across the “Empire” State (see
You’ve heard of UFOs—Unidentified Flying Objects. What about UOWs? That would be Undocumented Orphaned Wells. Not to be confused with undocumented illegal aliens. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, located in Berkeley, California, have figured out how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to scan and read old maps, recognizing oil and gas well symbols on those maps to generate potential well locations that can then be verified via satellite imagery and field surveys. This may be the first practical thing to come out of Berserkely in years!
Who let the DOGEs out? Who, who, who, who. (To be sung to the tune of the iconic song,
CNX Resources announced yesterday it had struck a deal to buy the assets of Apex Energy II, LLC, a portfolio company of funds managed by Carnelian Energy Capital Management, for $505 million. Apex owns wells, acreage, and pipelines in Westmoreland County, PA. The Apex assets are close to, in some cases adjacent to, CNX’s considerable assets in the region. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.
One month ago, National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) CEO David Bauer confirmed that his company had given up after battling for 10 years to build the Northern Access Pipeline, a 97-mile pipeline from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that would have flowed Marcellus gas into New York State (see 
Come and get it! Only ten companies have applied to plug 77 orphaned wells in Pennsylvania as part of $44.4 million allocated for PA’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP) grant program. By our calculations, more than $41 million remains in the pot unclaimed. However, the clock is ticking. There is a Dec. 16 deadline to meet if you want some of the money. Use it or lose it. What are you waiting for?
The research arm of Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo), one of the most trusted, energy-dedicated SaaS platforms offering real-time access to analytics, insights, and benchmark cost and revenue data, earlier this week published a new report on the Utica Shale. The report specifically discusses Utica oil—the production performance for Utica wells, and the economics of the play. The analysts of Enverus conclude that the Utica is “America’s modest middleweight contender.” However, that’s not the biggest news.
The country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, has made changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind. The change comes in response to the rapidly increasing demand for more electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence computing. PJM’s gas-favoring policy change has rankled the environmental left.
We have some exciting news to share. What was Pennsylvania’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Homer City Generating Station, located in Center Township, Indiana County, PA, shut down operations in July 2023. In its heyday, the massive plant produced 1,888 megawatts of electricity (nearly 2 GW). Demolition of the old plant and construction of a new gas-fired power plant are about to begin. According to a former county commissioner who now works for the project, the new gas-fired plant will produce “at least double” the energy it produced with coal. That would make it as big (possibly bigger) than the current largest gas-fired power plant in the country! The West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County, Florida, produces 3,777 MW of electricity and is the country’s largest gas-fired plant. Homer City may well exceed it. 
Every budget season in Pennsylvania, it’s the same old dog-and-pony show by the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). “We don’t have enough money to pay our staff,” and “We aren’t making as much money from (insanely high) shale permit fees anymore, so we need more taxpayer money to make up the difference.” Etc. Yet a few months later, after the budget is adopted, the DEP somehow finds money lying around to donate to various leftwing causes. Case in point: The DEP announced yesterday it is donating $600,000 to 12 leftist organizations to spread more wokeness across the Commonwealth under the banner of “environmental justice” (EJ). 