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Shell Cracker Plant has Flaring Episode – Skyline Turns Orange
The Shell ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh (now called Shell Polymers Monaca) had an orange glow over it Monday night. The neighbors were not impressed. According to Shell, there was an issue with the steam generator that caused the operators to initiate ground flaring–the burning of hydrocarbons. The flares relieve pressure by burning off hydrocarbons flowing through a malfunctioning piece of equipment. Shell insisted the flare itself is not a malfunction but instead “a safety device.” Kind of distinction without a difference, no?
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The partisan bully Josh Shapiro, far-left Attorney General in Pennsylvania (who is becoming Governor on Jan. 1, to PA’s shame), has claimed victory in converting what was at best an accident into a crime against Coterra Energy (née Cabot Oil & Gas). Yesterday in a courtroom in Susquehanna County, PA, Coterra plead “no contest” to a single misdemeanor charge Shapiro ginned up against the company over stray methane in a few water wells in Dimock, PA going back 14 years. It is a horrible miscarriage of justice. We wouldn’t blame Coterra if they NEVER drill another well in the state.
The Bidenistas continue their drive to kill fossil energy production in this country. The latest attack comes from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a part of the Dept. of Interior. Earlier this week, the BLM released a new draft regulation to “address the waste of natural gas during the production of oil and gas on federal and Tribal lands.” Sounds like a good thing, right? The regulation will force expensive new equipment to be purchased, enforce new methods to reduce methane emissions, and in general, bury both new drillers and existing producers under mountains of paperwork required to prove wells aren’t leaking methane. One of the places this proposed new reg will affect is the Allegheny National Forest (ANF) in northwestern Pennsylvania.
In January of this year, MDN reported on Pennsylvania State Senate Bill (SB) 806, aimed at providing clarity in the royalty payment statements landowners receive from oil and gas drillers (see 
The same three radicalized environmental groups that previously attacked the Renovo Energy Center (REC), a Marcellus gas-fired power plant planned for Clinton County, PA, are at it again. On November 22, the Clean Air Council, PennFuture, and the Center for Biological Diversity (all completely radicalized fossil fuel bigots) announced they had appealed an extension of time for an air pollution permit granted to REC by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Last week the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) voted to approve the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its Environmental Quality Board’s (EQB) rammed-through (in a rush) regulation to control volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and by extension methane, for conventional drilling sites throughout the state (see 
While tracking the active rig count week by week can give you a little sugar high, we think tracking the count month by month is more illustrative of where the count (and drilling activity) is heading. Baker Hughes is the grandaddy of rig counts, having tracked rigs since 1944. You need a rig to drill a new well, so counting active rigs gives you an idea of overall drilling activity. What do the rig counts look like for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia over the past two years? Is drilling activity going up, or down, in our region? We have the answer.
Last week (Nov. 14-20) saw a total of 31 new shale permits issued across the Marcellus/Utica, up slightly from 26 permits the week before. Pennsylvania received the most permits, with 26 new permits issued. Ohio received five new permits, and West Virginia got skunked with no new permits last week.
On Friday, MDN reported that one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) that was leaking roughly 100 MMcf/d of gas had finally been plugged (see 
These days we don’t often see the contract details for new leases signed by landowners to allow shale drilling. We used to see and report on large landowner coalitions and the deals they had struck back in the earlier days of the Marcellus/Utica. But today, about the only time you get any kind of insight into deal amounts comes when municipalities lease land for drilling, given that the business dealings of a municipality must be disclosed publicly. We’re always on the lookout for such deals. Allegheny Township in Westmoreland County (near Pittsburgh) has just approved a shale lease with Olympus Energy to drill under (not on) 27.7 acres of the Tredway Trail. The terms of the deal are…