16 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 21 – 27
New shale permits issued for Aug 21 – 27 in the Marcellus/Utica decreased once again. Up down, up down, up down. That’s what it feels like. There were 16 new permits issued last week, down nearly half from the 27 issued the prior week. Last week’s permit tally included 11 new permits in Pennsylvania, 5 new permits in Ohio, and no new permits in West Virginia (WV has issued no permits in four of the last five weeks). The top permittee for the week, for the third week in a row, was Chesapeake Energy, receiving 5 permits–1 in Bradford County and 4 in Sullivan County.
Read More “16 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 21 – 27”

One year ago, in July 2022, MDN brought you news of a possible frac-out, or “inadvertent return” that happens when drilling mud pops out of places where it’s not supposed to–places outside the borehole being drilled (see
Equitrans Midstream owns two natural gas storage wells in the Swarts Complex and Hunters Cave Storage Fields area of Greene County, PA–in Center, Franklin, Morris, and Washington Townships. CONSOL Energy, which used to be part of CNX Resources but is now a standalone company focusing on the coal industry, plans to mine coal above and around the Equitrans Hunters Cave and Swarts Natural Gas Storage Fields over the next several decades. So Equitrans is proposing to abandon its two existing storage wells (near where CONSOL needs to work) and drill two new wells in the same vicinity–just not near CONSOL’s coal mining activities.
In February 2022, Equitrans Midstream announced it had filed a new pipeline expansion project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
ECA Marcellus Trust I, the royalty interest holder in some of the wells drilled and maintained by Greylock Energy in Greene County, PA, announced it would issue a payout (the equivalent of a dividend) to unitholders of 4.3 cents per unit for 1Q23. That is down from 4Q22 when the Trust paid out 12.4 cents per unit, and down from 3Q22 when the Trust paid out 18 cents per unit. The company continues to hold back some profits ($90,000 in 1Q23) in order to build a cash reserve.