US Steel Caves to Antis, Cancels Plan to Drill Marcellus Wells
Here’s a new truism of life you may not have heard before: Be careful that the corporation you climb into bed with actually has a spine. Interestingly, U.S. Steel in East Pittsburgh, whom you would assume has a steel spine, doesn’t have a spine at all! Merrion Oil & Gas found that out the hard way. Merrion, a privately-owned oil and gas company headquartered in New Mexico, signed a lease with U.S. Steel to drill a series of up to 18 shale wells on the Edgar Thomson Works property in Allegheny County. Following blowback from loud-mouth anti-fossil fuel nutters, U.S. Steel decided the project isn’t worth the negative press. So they caved and canceled the lease with Merrion. Shame on U.S. Steel.
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Some good news to share. GoExpedi, a “supply chain, e-commerce and analytics company” based in Houston, Texas, opened a 15,000 square foot warehouse in North Fayette earlier this week. The company provides supplies to oil, gas, and industrial companies. The company’s database offers more than 200,000 parts and supplies. This is the company’s first northeast hub.
In February 2020, Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell sent a letter to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). McDonnell’s letter alleges Shell’s 97-mile, two-legged Falcon pipeline system that will carry ethane to the mighty Shell cracker plant now under construction in Beaver County, PA, “may have been constructed with defective corrosion coating protection.” It’s an explosive charge just coming to light now, more than a year later.
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received 9 new permits, with 5 of those permits going to Cabot Oil & Gas and their drilling program in Susquehanna County. Ohio received 4 new permits, all for the same company (Encino Energy) in the same county (Harrison) on the same well pad. And West Virginia received 3 new permits, all for the same company (Northeast Natural Energy) in the same county (Monongalia) on the same well pad.
Some two and a half years after Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline entered service in western Pennsylvania and exploded following a landslide, the pipeline finally returned to service yesterday. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a press release to say it had extracted another $125,000 from ET and has allowed the pipeline to resume service.
It’s kind of hard to consider the City of Pittsburgh as the “energy capital of the Northeast” when its mayor and now its namesake institution of higher learning are both virulent anti-fossil fuelers. University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) trustees on Friday agreed to continue phasing out fossil fuel investments in the school’s $4.3 billion endowment and become completely divested from fossil fuels by 2035 (14 years from now). That’s not fast enough for the petulant, childish kids whose parents pay their steep tuition bills at Pitt. The spoiled kids want the university to divest NOW, darnit (feet stomping on the floor)…
Yesterday, CNX Resources, Bettis Brothers, and The Bus Stops Here Foundation announced a partnership intended to bring greater awareness and access to opportunities in the natural gas industry to disadvantaged urban and rural communities in the Pittsburgh region. Does the Bettis name ring any bells? It should. Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit last summer against EQT claiming discrimination against his company (a minority-owned company) after EQT canceled a contract worth some $66 million (see 
Last June MDN told you about a plan by McCandless, a township in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh), to block any and all shale drilling within its borders by getting creative (see 
Well, this is a bummer. Dave Spigelmyer, someone we consider to be a friend, is retiring from the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) effective today. He will be replaced by MSC board member Dave Callahan, who officially takes over on Monday. Spigelmyer has been president (the second president of the MSC) since 2013. He took over from another terrific person, Katie Klaber, the organization’s first president. Dave Callahan has big shoes to fill, but we’re confident he’s up to the task.
Like 99% of Hail Mary passes, the effort by environmental radicals in southwestern PA to block a forthcoming shale wastewater injection well has failed. As we told you last week, a group of antis, in a desperate final attempt to block an injection well in Plum (Allegheny County), PA, threw a Hail Mary pass by asking Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to assume dictatorial powers and block the project (see 
A well in the Marcellus Shale in (of all places) Plum Borough in Allegheny County, PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh) has become the longest onshore lateral drilled in the Marcellus Shale. Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley Exploration) has drilled and completed a well with a 20,060-foot lateral–3.8 miles long!