33 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 24-30
Our apologies that this latest weekly permit update is a day late. Normally we issued these updates on Wednesdays. Yesterday the Pennsylvania database we use to locate information on new permits issued was throwing an error. We alerted the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, which maintains the database, and they got it fixed sometime last night. So we’re back! Our thanks to the programmers at the DEP.
The total number of permits across PA, OH and WV last week were down by about half from the week before. There were 33 new permits issued last week vs. 61 two weeks ago.
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EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the United States, announced last Friday that all of its natural gas produced in Washington and Greene counties in Pennsylvania (the majority of its production, some 4 Bcf/d) is now officially certified as “responsibly produced” gas by two different certification organizations: Equitable Origin and MiQ. That 4 Bcf/d of certified gas represents 4.5% of all natural gas produced in the U.S.
Last week 24 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania had the lion’s share with 19 new permits–most of those (10) were issued for two Chesapeake Energy well pads in Bradford County in the northeastern part of the state. Ohio had just two new permits, both on the same Southwestern Energy well pad in Monroe County. West Virginia had three new permits, one in Pleasants County and two in Marshall County.
The EQT Foundation was established in 2003 as a dedicated resource for financial, in-kind, and volunteer support to communities where EQT works and has a presence. Since its inception, the EQT Foundation has awarded more than $60 million to nonprofits throughout the operational footprint of EQT. That is an amazing number! In honor of Giving Tuesday, yesterday EQT announced the launch of two new giving programs to support the communities of Greene County, PA, and Wetzel County, WV.
Yesterday two Pennsylvania residents filed what they hope will turn into a class action lawsuit against EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The lawsuit claims EQT has not made required royalty payments to the two residents nor to many (hundreds? thousands?) others. The lawsuit claims, among other things, a violation of PA’s Minimum Royalty Act that guarantees payments to all rights owners of at least 12.5% of the value of the produced gas.