The Key Issue that May Decide Whether Wyalusing LNG Gets Built
Earlier this month, MDN brought you the great news that New Fortress Energy’s (NFE) proposed Wyalusing LNG export plant (in Bradford County, PA) and a docking facility in Gibbstown (in New Jersey, along the Delaware River) to load ships with PA-produced LNG, are not dead yet (see Northeast PA LNG Plant Lives! NFE Tells FERC Still Wants to Build). So if they aren’t dead, if NFE is still interested in building and has already spent $150 million on site preparation, what’s keeping the project stalled? We’ve just come across an article that does an excellent job of crystalizing where we are and why the project has not yet moved forward — and perhaps why it will not get built.
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Last year in March and then again in May, New Fortress Energy (NFE) confirmed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it plans to apply for updated permits to build an LNG export plant in landlocked northeastern Pennsylvania (see 
Two weeks ago, during the week of April 15 – 21, there were 16 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica. Last week, for the week of April 22 – 28, there were 26 new permits issued. Finally! A little good news on the permit front. Snyder Brothers took the top prize with eight new permits issued, all of them for a single well pad in Armstrong County, PA. Chesapeake Energy scored five new permits, all of them for a single pad in Bradford County, PA. EQT Corporation (using its Rice Drilling subsidiary) received four permits in Greene County, PA. Encino Energy also received four permits, all for one pad in Harrison County, OH. Antero Resources received three permits in Wetzel County, WV, and Southwestern Energy received two permits in Brooke County, WV.
Over the past seven-plus years, BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American arm of Banpu (96% owned by Banpu, Thailand’s largest coal mining company), has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV originally entered the American shale sector by investing $500 million in 2016-2017 to buy existing Marcellus wells and acreage in northeast Pennsylvania. Then the company went wandering into other shale plays (see 
We tried to cram the gist of the news into the headline but found we could not. This is a big story, for multiple reasons. Most news outlets are reporting (and this is not incorrect) that EQT pulled off a big deal to divest a good chunk of its nonoperated assets (acreage and functioning wells in which EQT owns a minority stake) in northeastern Pennsylvania, trading those assets for 10,000 operated acres in Lycoming County, PA (in northeastern PA), plus 26,000 operated acres in Monroe County, OH, plus receiving $500 million cash, in a deal with Norway’s Equinor (formerly Statoil). EQT divesting from its nonop assets is a big deal. However, the bigger news, in our humble opinion, is that Equinor has (with this deal) completely exited all operated assets in U.S. shale. The company wants to keep its fingers in the U.S. shale pie, but only as a nonop operator — that is, investing in wells that other companies drill and maintain.
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. Last Thursday, the SRBC approved 23 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, eight of them for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers receiving a green light from SRBC included Beech Resources, Chesapeake Energy, Greylock Energy, Seneca Resources, and Southwestern Energy.
On February 8, 2024, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a notice of violation (NOV) to Blackhill Energy for failing to prevent the migration of shale gas into groundwater that contaminated three nearby private water wells in Springfield Township (Bradford County) in June of 2022. Yes, the NOV took nearly two years to get issued. We’re not sure why it takes so long to issue an NOV (perhaps a full investigation takes that long?), but it does. Blackhill self-reported the issue back in 2022 and presumably has already corrected it.
Spanish energy giant Repsol, with around 214,000 net acres of leases in the Marcellus Shale, primarily located in northeastern Pennsylvania in Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties, issued the company’s fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update last week. Among the tidbits coming to light is a statement by Repsol management that the company plans to spend €$1 billion (US$1.083 billion) in the Marcellus over the next four years. Repsol loves the Marcellus!