Beaver County | Carbon Capture | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Shell
Shell, Archaea Energy Explore Carbon Capture Projects for SW, NE PA
Two different companies working on two different plans have met with Pennsylvania’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to discuss potential carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS) projects in the Keystone State. Shell, which is nearly done building its multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, is looking to establish a CCS project in Beaver County. Archaea Energy, one of the largest so-called renewable natural gas (RNG) producers in the U.S., is looking to set up a CCS project in Lackawanna County, PA (near Scranton).
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In January MDN reported comments by a Shell representative who said the mighty ethane cracker the company is building in Monaca (Beaver County), PA was 95% complete (see 
Last week Pennsylvania issued 21 new shale well permits, with Snyder Brothers grabbing seven, PennEnergy Resources getting six, and Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) receiving five. In each case, the permits for each company were for a single well pad. Ohio issued just three new permits last week, two for Ascent Resources and one for Southwestern Energy. West Virginia finally came back to life, issuing seven new shale permits last week. Six of the WV permits were for Antero Resources, one for Southwestern Energy.
PennEnergy Resources LLC, which according to the Pittsburgh Business Times is the 11th largest shale driller in Pennsylvania (with 405 active shale wells), has achieved responsibly sourced natural gas certification from Project Canary on nearly all of its wells. Project Canary has issued its top “Gold” and “Platinum” ratings on 375 of PennEnergy’s wells.
Just a few weeks ago we told you a Shell rep said the mighty ethane cracker is 80% complete and the company is now searching for permanent employees to fill some 600 positions (see 
A Shell spokesman last week said that the mighty ethane cracker plant the company is building in Monaca (Beaver County), PA is now 80% complete and projected to be operational “sometime this year,” although a more specific date can’t be nailed down. Currently, there are some 8,000 workers who report to the construction site each day. Simply astounding! When the plant is done and operational, it will employ about 600 permanent on-site workers. Shell is now in recruiting mode to find those 600 permanent workers.
This edition of the Marcellus/Utica permits report covers the past two weeks as MDN was taking a break during the last week of 2021. For the period of December 20 through January 2, there were 29 permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. PA had 16 new permits (most of them located on two well pads), OH had 12 new permits (spread across five well pads), and WV had just one new permit. Must be WV DEP took the last two weeks of the year off.
The so-called Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) is a far-left, hyper-partisan, nonprofit organization that routinely lies about the Marcellus/Utica industry. A Pittsburgh area labor and business group called Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT) routinely debunks ORVI’s falsehoods. Here’s the latest lie from ORVI: “[T]he Shell petrochemical complex has failed to produce economic growth in Beaver County.” Here’s the truth, the facts, as shared by PWT: “In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, Beaver County grew jobs far faster than the overall Pittsburgh region, the state of Pennsylvania, and the U.S, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of labor statistics. And Beaver County’s economy expanded twice as fast as the rest of the state, and faster than the U.S. economy overall, gross domestic product (GDP) data show.”
WT Data Mining and Science Corp. wants to set up a bitcoin mining operation at a compressed natural gas (CNG) facility owned by Geopetro in Darlington Township (Beaver County), PA. WT Data Mining proposes to build an electric generator at the CNG site and use natural gas to generate massive amounts of electricity required to power the company’s computers that mine bitcoin. Some of the neighbors are concerned about noise.
Imagine Hershey Park getting fined for smelling like a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Or Starbucks getting fined because the businesses next door can smell the coffee. The Shell cracker plant is getting fined for smelling like…maple syrup? Last week residents in several Beaver County, PA municipalities neighboring the Shell ethane cracker complex reported smelling something like a strong whiff of maple syrup. Shell immediately hired a third-party investigator and believes they now know what caused the smell.
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) recently issued a “warning letter” to Shell concerning the company’s ethane pipeline, called the Falcon Pipeline. PHMSA claims the pipeline committed two “probable violations” by failing to place pipeline sections at a construction site in Beaver County on protective padding. PHMSA told Shell to fix it, or else.