PA DEP Allows Coterra (Cabot O&G) to Resume Drilling in Dimock
For all of you Paul Harvey fans (God rest his soul), this is, “The Rest of the Story.” Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, about to become Governor on Jan. 1 (a bona fide tragedy), made a big splash by announcing he had finally bullied Coterra Energy, the former Cabot Oil & Gas, into taking a plea deal in the infamous Dimock, PA case of methane migration into a few water wells (see PA AG Shapiro Dismisses 14 Felony Charges Against Coterra re Dimock). Coterra plead “no contest” (i.e., did NOT admit to any guilt) to a misdemeanor charge, while 14 felony charges were completely dismissed. It was a humiliating defeat for Shapiro. But that’s not even the best part! The best part, revealed yesterday in an Associate Press article, is that Coterra/Cabot, which has not been allowed to drill on its own leased land within a nine-square-mile box in Dimock, is now allowed to resume drilling there! We call it a TOTAL VICTORY for Coterra.
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Late last week, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) slapped Equitrans with three orders related to the Rager Mountain Gas Storage Reservoir in Cambria County, PA. The George L Reade 1 storage well located in the Rager Storage Reservoir vented natural gas uncontrolled into the atmosphere from Sunday, November 6, 2022, until the evening of Saturday, November 19, 2022, when it was plugged. The DEP has been onsite during the entire event (and since). An investigation by the DEP has found all but one of the 12 storage wells at the Rager field are leaking methane to one degree or another. The DEP has closed down all injections into the field, although withdrawals from the field (in order to prevent customers from going without) have continued.
In March, MDN told you that the Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued a ruling against the now completed Mariner East 2 pipeline project, assessing a $51,000 fine on the project for work done near an apartment complex (see 
Last week (Nov. 28-Dec. 4), the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells rose slightly to 21 from the prior week’s 17. The big surprise is why. Pennsylvania only handed out five new permits. Ohio issued even fewer–just three. It was West Virginia with 12 new permits that saved the day.
There are advantages and disadvantages to being publicly or privately owned. In the oil and gas sector, most large companies are publicly owned–meaning they have a board of directors, and the “owners” hold shares of stock in the company, shares traded on public exchanges. In the Marcellus/Utica, most of the top drillers are publicly owned: Range Resources, Coterra Energy, CNX Resources, EQT Corporation, Antero Resources, Southwestern Energy, Repsol, National Fuel Gas Company (i.e. Seneca Resources), and Gulfport Energy. Several others are privately owned, including Ascent Resources (Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S.), Greylock Energy (based in West Virginia), and Olympus Energy (which drills in the Pittsburgh suburbs).
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that as of Friday, a new regulation controlling volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, and by extension methane emissions, for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers went into effect (see 
This morning the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for July through September 2022 (full copy below). There were 158 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 3Q22, an increase of 47 wells (+42%) compared to 3Q21. However, natural gas production volume was 1,878 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 3Q22, a slight decrease (-0.8%) from 3Q21. It is the third quarterly decrease in production in a row (comparing the same quarters year-over-year). However, 3Q22 production was up slightly (+1.4%) from 2Q22.
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
This one came right out of left field, and we didn’t see it coming. Totally unexpected. Yesterday, outgoing U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania, introduced a bill to reform pipeline permitting. The bill specifically approves and would push through final construction for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a pipeline that doesn’t even touch PA (it starts in Wetzel County, WV, and ends in Pittsylvania County, VA). The bill was concurrently introduced in the House by Congressman Mike Kelly, also from PA. Weird. Does this bill stand even a remote chance of passing before Congress adjourns and the next Congress takes over in early January?
Updates for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers, both environmental protection standards and waste handling standards (two different updates), will now fall to the incoming Josh Shapiro administration. So says the Acting Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski. In other words, Klapkowski and his boss, Gov. Tom Wolf, are punting these important updates to the anti-drilling Shapiro. Washing their hands of it.
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a part of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, voted to adopt a last-minute, rushed-through-in-a-hurry regulation to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions (and by extension, methane emissions) from conventional oil and gas operations in the state. The DEP and EQB had more than five years to work on these regulations and chose to fritter away the time. Faced with losing federal highway budget money without a new regulation in place, they rushed it–and botched it. Now the mom-and-pop oil and gas companies across the state will pay the price (and some will go out of business).