PA DEP Hints May Not Make Sept 1 Deadline for Conventional Review
In late July, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, controlled by the extreme left in the Democrat Party, allowed PA House Bill (HB) 2644 to become law without his signature (see New PA Act 96 Helps Boost Plugging Orphan Wells – Left Goes Nuts). Wolf took a big hit from the lunatics in his own party following his inaction on 2644. So he tried to make up for it by publishing a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin to justify his action of allowing 2644 to become law (now called Act 96), and to instruct the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to conduct a comprehensive review of conventional oil and gas driller compliance–and to do it by September 1st (see PA Gov. Wolf Instructs DEP to Draft New Regs Following Act 96). In a meeting with the PA Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) last week, acting Secretary of the DEP, Kurt Klapkowski, said the September 1st deadline is “aggressive.”
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Along with Harvard, Yale University used to be one of the top two higher ed schools in the country. Wow, how the mighty have fallen! Yale is a husk, a shell of what it once was. Yale now puts political ideology above science and generates garbage, calling it “research.” Yale is experiencing some major cognitive dissonance. At various points over the past decade, Yale researchers have claimed fracking does NOT contaminate water aquifers (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for April through June 2022 (full copy below). There were 133 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 2Q22, an increase of 13 wells (10.8%) compared to 2Q21. However, natural gas production volume was 1,836 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2Q22, a slight decrease (-0.9%) from 2Q21. It is the second quarterly decrease in production in a row. It appears that maybe PA has hit a plateau for natural gas production.
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (
Pennsylvania issued seven new shale permits for the week of August 8-14, with two each going to EQT (in Greene County) and Chesapeake Energy (in Sullivan County). Ohio issued five new permits, with four of them going to Encino Energy (Harrison County). Finally, West Virginia issue five new permits with all of them going to Jay-Bee Oil & Gas (Tyler County).
Gas Field Specialists, headquartered in Potter County, PA, is an oilfield services (OFS) company that works in the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania. The company also does OFS work in western New York State. According to a settlement reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Gas Field Specialists will pay a former employee (rig worker/mechanic) $184,000 after firing him because he had cancer.
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon issued its second quarter 2022 update earlier this week. The company’s Marcellus net gas production was 2.324 Bcf (billion cubic feet) in total, not per day, during 2Q22. That number is down from 2.548 Bcf in 2Q21.
In June, a Shell executive told the Appalachian Energy Innovation Collaborative conference that the company’s Pennsylvania ethane cracker project was 98% done and would be fully online within “a couple of months” (see 
Every single year Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a budget (all eight years of his ignominious occupation of the office), he insisted on raising taxes on the Marcellus industry by adding a high severance tax to an already-high impact tax. Every. Single. Year. In addition to an impact (i.e. severance) tax in PA, Marcellus drillers must pay an insanely high corporate net income tax (CNIT) of 9.99%. All businesses in the state are subject to the CNIT. Because of the high tax burden (the impact tax and the CNIT added together), many drillers have decided to expand elsewhere, like West Virginia, Ohio, and Louisiana. Now that he’s leaving office, Wolf has signed on to a reduction of the CNIT, claiming he never liked that nasty ole tax anyway.
Loathsome and disgusting shale energy hater Josh Shapiro, Attorney General for Pennsylvania (running for governor), announced on Friday that he finally bullied Energy Transfer into pleading “no contest” (meaning they don’t admit to a darned thing) in a so-called criminal case against the company for a series of accidents affecting construction for both the Revolution and Mariner East pipelines. Shapiro brought the case–a case that converts accidents into crimes–in order to burnish his credibility with the wacko left in his own party. Now he has a “victory” to run on–and everyone in Pennsylvania is the poorer because of it.
During pipeline giant Williams’ 2Q22 update last week, company officials talked about expansion projects in the Marcellus/Utica region (see 
Earlier this week, Energy Transfer (ET), the builder of the mighty Mariner East pipelines and owner/expander of the Marcus Hook refinery, issued its second quarter update. The company had plenty of positive news to report, including net income of $1.33 billion, a $700 million increase from the same period last year. In July, the company hit a new record high for the amount of NGLs flowing through the Mariner East pipeline system. It has also found a way to squeeze another roughly 10,000 barrels per day of NGL exports out of Marcus Hook.