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9 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Sep 26-Oct 2
Just nine new permits to drill shale wells were issued across the three Marcellus/Utica states for Sept. 26 to Oct. 2. Pennsylvania turned in the second week in a row of very low new permits–just three issued, all of them to different companies in different counties. Ohio issued just four new permits, with two of them going to Encino Energy in Carroll County. And West Virginia issued just two new permits, both to Southwestern Energy in Brooke County.
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Equinor, Norway’s largest oil company (state-owned, used to be called Statoil before they became ashamed to have the word “oil” in their name), announced it had achieved 100% certification for its natural gas produced in the Ohio Utica using Equitable Origin’s EO100™ standard. Equinor now produces “responsible” natural gas for its 27,000 operational net acres, and 242,000 non-operational net acres. Congrats!
On Monday, local business leaders in Jefferson County, OH, were treated to an update on the Utica Shale and how local manufacturers can benefit from the growth in the shale industry. According to Robert Naylor, executive director for the Jefferson County Port Authority, “the (purpose) of the workshop was to stress or demonstrate how the business community — vendors and manufacturers — could enter the energy supply chain to create jobs, workforce development and overall economic game for our region.” Two powerhouse speakers from 
Apparently, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf told a fib on Feb. 1 of this year when he said PA had received an initial $25 million cash infusion from the federal government’s new (so-called) infrastructure law for use in plugging orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells (see 
Earlier this year, one of the biggest nutjobs in Congress, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat-RI), introduced an excise tax, which he erroneously called a windfall profits tax, targeted at oil company profits. The bill would impose a 50% tax on the difference between the current sale price of a barrel of oil and the average price of a barrel of oil from 2015 to 2019, which was roughly $66 per barrel. It would apply to sales by companies that produce or import at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day (or did so in 2019). Whitehouse later revised his plan to a proposed 21% windfall profits tax on oil company profits over 10%. Believe it or not, Ohio appears to be debating whether or not to apply such a windfall profits tax to its energy producers.
A new audit of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Orphan Well Program was released August 9 by the Auditor of State’s Ohio Performance Team (full copy below). The Ohio Auditor’s office reviews the operations of government agencies and programs and offers recommendations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Auditor of State Keith Faber said in the audit that ODNR is still spending only about half of the funding required to plug old wells. Faber said, “ODNR’s Orphan Well Program is moving in the right direction, but there’s still much work to do,” and “We need to pick up the pace.” It was a metaphorical kick in the seat of the pants.
In July, MDN told you about the newest chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO), the Ohio chapter (see 
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