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19 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 25 – 31
For the week of August 25 – 31, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica decreased from the previous week. There were 19 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, down from 30 issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania issued just six new permits, with two going to CNX Resources in Greene County. Another two went to EQT (including Rice Drilling), also in Greene County. Seneca Resources and Formentera Operating both received a single permit in Cameron and Lycoming counties, respectively. Read More “19 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 25 – 31”
Two weeks ago, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count resumed a downward trend, which continued last week. The count lost another two rigs to end the week at 536. The count has been down (bleeding) 16 of the last 18 weeks. Fortunately, the Marcellus/Utica count has remained constant for the past six weeks, at a combined 36 active rigs. PA operated 18 active rigs. OH ran 11 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeted the Utica last week. The overall downward trend in the national count is due to a slowdown in oil-focused drilling, although last week’s figures reversed this trend. Baker Hughes said oil rigs rose by one to 412 last week, while gas rigs fell by three to 119. 
Wow! Here’s a bombshell rumor. Antero Resources, the country’s fifth-largest natural gas producer and largest producer in West Virginia, is preparing to market its Ohio Utica assets, hoping to fetch $900 million to $1 billion. That’s according to an exclusive report by Hart Energy, which spoke to “multiple sources” who requested anonymity. Antero owns 82,000 acres of leases in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale of eastern Ohio, in “the most prolific part of the play,” according to the company’s website. 
New life is being breathed into old, shuttered coal-fired power plants. That’s the focus of an article appearing on the Fortune magazine website. The poster child for converting old coal-fired plants is none other than the former Homer City Generating Station in Indiana County, PA. It will be transformed into a more than 3,200-acre natural gas-powered data center campus, designed to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). The new gas-fired plant in Homer City will be THE LARGEST gas-fired power plant in the country, capable of producing up to 4.5 gigawatts (4,500 MW) of electricity (see 
A crew from Monroe Drilling Operations, LLC, was working on an abandoned well located in Wayne National Forest (in Washington County, OH) on Monday morning when natural gas and crude oil traveled up through the well to the surface and ignited, causing an explosion. In addition to the five members of Monroe Drilling, a mineral resources inspector from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) was also on-site. All six people on-site were injured by the blast, with five of the six “critically injured.” Please offer a prayer for those who were injured. 
Back in April, MDN brought you news about an important decision issued in a federal court case (in Ohio) that potentially affects landowners and drillers with shale leases throughout the Marcellus/Utica (see 
The war of words continues. 
Last week, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count resumed its downward trend, losing another rig from the week before to 538 active rigs nationwide. The count has been down (bleeding) 15 of the last 17 weeks. The Marcellus/Utica count remained the same for the past five weeks at a combined 36 active rigs. PA operated 18 active rigs. OH ran 11 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeted the Utica last week. The downward trend is due to a scaleback in oil-focused drilling. Baker Hughes said oil rigs fell by one to 411 last week, while gas rigs held steady at 122. 
We’ve been tracking a story that we consider an ongoing tragedy for more than a decade. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County, Ohio, that supposedly caused a low-level earthquake (that nobody could feel) in 2014. Actually, there are two injection wells located at the site, both operated by AWMS. They were both “temporarily” shut down by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) following the quake nobody could feel (see 
Morgantown, WV-based Hope Utilities announced yesterday that its subsidiary, Northeast Ohio Natural Gas Corporation (NEO), will build, operate, and maintain a pipeline (and associated natural gas facilities) to supply a fuel cell project being developed by American Electric Power (AEP) to power a data center in central Ohio. The details are (so far) thin. We don’t know how much the project will cost or which data center it will power. This isn’t the first such pipeline project announced to feed an AEP-powered data center. 
According to a leftist Democrat publication, Signal Ohio, what was “supposed to be a sleepy, county-level Republican meeting where political allies get on the same page” turned into a shouting match between Marietta City Council President Susan Vessels (a Republican) and State Senator Brian Chavez (a Republican and Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee). The heated discussion revolved around wastewater injection wells and their proximity to city water supplies. Chavez is the former CEO of DeepRock Disposal Solutions, which currently operates four injection wells near Marietta and has applied to build a fifth. 
Rover Pipeline, a 713-mile natural gas pipeline, was designed to carry up to 3.25 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus and Utica gas from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio to destinations in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and Canada. The project was completed and came online in late 2018 (see