The Real Cause of Low Natural Gas Prices in PA, OH, WV
In yet another attempt to deflect attention away from Kamala Harris’ extreme position on fracking (she wanted to ban it completely everywhere in 2019), mainstream news continues to publish stories on other Pennsylvania energy topics. For example, yesterday, the New York Times published a story with this headline: “Big Energy Issue in Pennsylvania Is Low Natural Gas Prices. Not Fracking.” We forced ourselves to read it all the way through. We “took one for the team,” so you won’t have to. The story started out fine and made some legitimate points. The NYT article is (more or less) right as far as it goes. The problem is that the article doesn’t go far enough. It stops with only half of the story told. Here at MDN, we tell you the whole story—all of the facts, not just some of the facts. Read More “The Real Cause of Low Natural Gas Prices in PA, OH, WV”
In September 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing to Eagle LNG to build a small LNG export facility project at a site on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida (see 
A group of 10 Republican U.S. Senators, led by the great Ted Cruz (from Texas), have introduced a new bill titled “The Safe and Secure Transportation of American Energy Act.” The proposed law expands criminal penalties to cover vandalizing, tampering with, or disrupting the operations or construction of a pipeline. The Senators say current laws criminalize eco-terrorism and the destruction of infrastructure but don’t go far enough and don’t have “enough teeth” when it comes to acts disrupting the operation or construction of a pipeline. Like the situations we saw with protesters constantly delaying the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia. 
We spotted a report about an aboveground pipeline that flows shale wastewater that sprung a leak and released an estimated 12,600 gallons of brine (salty water from deep below the surface) on the ground in Gilmore Township, Greene County, PA. The pipeline is owned by EQM Gathering, another name for Equitrans Midstream, which is now owned by EQT. The leaking pipeline connects to the Trust Well Site owned by EQT. It sure sounds like a serious spill (12,600 gallons) with the potential to contaminate local water supplies—until you dig into the state Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) report on the incident. 
A couple of interesting developments with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), which, unlike its dysfunctional cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), the SRBC continues to allow water withdrawals to supply water for shale fracking in northeastern Pennsylvania. The first development is that over the weekend (on Saturday), the SRBC Hydrologic Conditions Monitor showed low stream flows in some areas that triggered water withdrawal restrictions for water users, including seven shale gas water withdrawal locations (most of them for driller Repsol). The other development is that two days earlier, on Thursday, the SRBC approved new water withdrawal requests for 22 new projects, including eight from shale drillers! 
According to Pennsylvania regulation 25 Pa. Code § 78a.122(b)(6)(iv), a drilling company must provide a list of the chemicals intentionally added to the stimulation [fracking] fluid by name and chemical abstract service (CAS) number in a Completion Report. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says Apex Energy failed to provide that information on its reports for 37 shale wells in Westmoreland County drilled between March 20, 2018, and February 17, 2024. The DEP issued a NOV (Notice of Violation) to Apex on Sept. 9. 
It’s really fascinating to watch this presidential election. Yes, we’ve promised to try and keep the politics to a minimum, but we must report on things we notice that have the potential to affect the shale drilling industry in general, and the Marcellus/Utica in particular. Here’s an issue we cannot keep silent about. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, Kamala Harris hates fossil fuel energy and wants to eliminate it. She told a CNN moderator in 2019 that she favors “a ban on fracking.” Period. For the entire country. Yet now, because she must win Pennsylvania in order to win the race, she professes she is against a ban on fracking (see 
In January, Joementia announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 17 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see 
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 (a half a mile!), and add a setback of 5,000 feet from schools and hospitals (almost a full mile!). It is a ban on new shale drilling in the township, plain and simple. In May, the supervisors favored a setback of 1,500 feet, which is still too far and onerous, but not an outright ban like 2,500 feet (see 
In 2019, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) began formulating new regulations for intrastate pipelines transporting gasoline, petroleum, crude oil, and natural gas liquids like ethane. In July 2021, the PUC finally published a draft of new regulations (see 
Over the years, we’ve written many posts about the Everett LNG import terminal near Boston (
In March of this year, MDN brought the news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had approved an Enbridge project to update its East Tennessee Natural Gas (ETNG) pipeline system (see 
In 2019, when then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced he would unilaterally force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme aimed at forcing coal- and gas-fired plants out of business, he claimed the tax would only amount to a few dollars per allowance (or “short ton”) of CO2 (see 
What’s your price, Pennsylvania oil and gas industry? Are you willing to sell yourselves to the Democrats for $152 million (revised down to $114 million) in bribes? How about if Biden-Harris sweetens the pot and rushes a check for $76 million to the state, as they did yesterday? Can you not see through this sleazy attempt to unduly influence the election? In August, Biden-Harris promised (but hasn’t yet delivered a dime of) up to $152 million in “Phase 2” federal money, i.e., your taxpayer dollars, to help plug old conventional oil and gas wells in the Keystone State (see