DeepRock & Fountain Quail Merge, Form Major M-U Injection Well Co.
Two shale wastewater injection well companies, DeepRock Disposal and Fountain Quail Energy Services, have merged. The combined company is keeping the DeepRock Disposal name. The new entity is one of the largest SWD (saltwater disposal well) operators in the Appalachian Basin with 12 wells located in Ohio and West Virginia (with permits for several more). However, the bigger news (for us) is that DeepRock plans to offload barged frack wastewater–very soon.
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Energy Transfer (Sunoco Pipeline) is pushing back against a demand by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the company’s Mariner East 2X pipeline project be rerouted around Marsh Creek State Park (in Chester County, PA) following a drilling mud spill in August. Sunoco has asked the PA Environmental Hearing Board, a special court created to hear appeals of DEP decisions, to override the DEP’s demand to reroute ME2X.
This would be funny if it weren’t so darned sad. In Lansing, NY, just outside of Planet Ithaca in Tompkins County, the local utility (NYSEG) wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natural gas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
A lawsuit against Pennsylvania driller EdgeMarc Energy that began in 2018 is finally settled. In Sept. 2018 MDN told you about a single former employee of EdgeMarc launching what turned into a class action lawsuit against the company alleging some employees were misclassified as independent contractors and denied overtime pay (see 
There is a reason why President Trump and sleepy/creepy Uncle Joe Biden are visiting Pennsylvania so much. It is one of the “battleground” states, likely THE state, that will determine who wins the presidential race next week. The key issue both candidates talk about is fracking. Joe Biden (says Donald Trump) will take away the right to frack in PA, and along with it thousands of jobs. Biden insists he won’t ban fracking, but in the next breath says he will “transition” the country away from using oil (and gas, all fossil fuels) over the next 15 years. Which is, in essence, a ban on fracking.
In June MDN told you that the East Pittsburgh Borough Zoning Board, bullied by anti-fossil fuel radicals, had revoked a permit allowing a series of Marcellus Shale wells to be drilled on the property of U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson steel mill, the oldest still-operating steel mill in the country (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally, after months of dithering, granted approval to TC Energy to begin construction of its Louisiana XPress project to beef up flows along the existing Columbia pipeline system by an additional 850 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) by adding three new compressor stations and expanding a fourth compressor in Louisiana.
Once again the Mariner East 2 pipeline project is up Snitz Creek…without a paddle? There have been a number of “inadvertent returns” or mud spills in Snitz Creek, place where drilling mud is used to grease a drill bit for drilling holes under the creek. Mud has popped up where it’s not supposed to. Some of the mud spills have been, literally, just a couple of gallons. NOTHING. A recent spill on Oct. 19 was for 200 gallons.
Radicalized leftists from environmental groups like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are no longer content to try and prevent the construction of new natural gas pipelines, they now seek to shut down already-built and flowing pipelines. Case in point: A year ago the Spire STL pipeline came online flowing Marcellus/Utica molecules to the St. Louis area (see 
Back in March, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to enter the public consciousness, some 500 people from labor unions and industry met in Pittsburgh to launch an organization called Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT), dedicated to fighting back against those who want to end southwest PA industries including steel, natural gas, and petrochemicals (see 
Bloomberg is reporting insider sources say EQT, already the biggest natural gas producer in the country (and pureplay driller in the Marcellus/Utica), has sent a takeover proposal to CNX Resources, another major Marcellus/Utica driller. Friendly? Hostile? Who knows. In September inside sources told Reuters that EQT had made a bid on Chevron’s extensive M-U acreage (see 
Patterson-UTI Energy released its third-quarter 2020 update yesterday. The company operates a number of rigs in the Marcellus/Utica region. According to its website, Patterson has 12 active rigs in the M-U (which is more than one-third of all active M-U rigs). CEO Andy Hendricks said yesterday that fracking activity across a number of shale plays is coming back and will continue to grow in 2021.
The Enverus U.S. rig count rose by 11 to 347 over the past week, after having going up by 13 the week before (see 
Petulant anti-fossil fuel nutters in New Jersey have succeeded in bullying NJ Transit into dropping a plan to build a backup (to be used in emergencies only) gas-fired power plant in Kearny, NJ. Score another victory for green bullies.