20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Sep 30 – Oct 6
There were 20 permits issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica for the week of Sept. 30 – Oct. 6, down eight from the 28 issued the prior week. The Keystone State (PA) had eight new permits, with five going to Southwestern Energy (now Expand Energy following a merger with Chesapeake) in both Susquehanna and Wyoming counties. The other three permits went to Laurel Mountain Energy for a pad in Butler County. Read More “20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Sep 30 – Oct 6”


The blowhard Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, took a bow last year to tout that “his” administration (as opposed to the Democrat who preceded him, Tom Wolf) had plugged more than 130 abandoned old oil and gas wells in the state, more than “the previous eight years combined” (see
XTO Energy began to drill four shale wells in Prospect Borough, Butler County, PA, in 2019. At least one of the wells was drilled down to a depth of nearly 2,000 feet. At some point since that time, XTO decided not to finish the wells and filed a request to plug the wells. A Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspector visited the well pad, the Coretsky well pad, in September of last year and issued a “failure to plug” notice of violation for the four wells (called the Patton wells). Although it took a few months, XTO said the equipment would be delivered last week and that, as of today (Monday), the process would begin to cap and plug the four abandoned wells.