M-U Landowners May be Asked to Lease “Pore” Rights for CO2 Capture
Over the past decade or more landowners have been approached about leasing their property and/or mineral rights–for shale drilling, pipelines, solar and wind farms, etc. Here’s a new one to add to the list: pore rights. Pore space is the underground space where carbon dioxide that’s captured from various processes can be injected and stored, keeping it locked away underground where it theoretically won’t damage Mom Earth. The whole concept of storing CO2 underground would be funny if it were not so sad that grownups are actually doing this. But we digress. Leasing pore rights may be the next big thing for landowners and mineral rights owners in the Marcellus/Utica region as carbon capture and storage takes off. However, who owns pore rights? Landowners or mineral rights owners?
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The Acting Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski, spoke to the DEP’s Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) yesterday, updating the board on his program’s finances (lack thereof). As part of his comments, Klapkowski observed that each year the number of new shale wells drilled in PA decreases. He offered some reasons why that may be happening. We have a few reasons to add that Klapkowski overlooked.
Pennsylvania has already received the first $25 million payment from the so-called infrastructure bill, a down payment on what will eventually be ~$400 million over the next 15 years to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells across the state (see 
Pennsylvania State Rep. Marina White (Republican from Philadelphia, a true rarity) sponsored a bill that’s getting traction in Harrisburg. House Bill (HB) 2458, which passed with a vote by the full House on April 13, creates a task force to study how to establish Philadelphia LNG exports to international markets, particularly those in Europe. The bill creates a task force to study the economic feasibility, financial impact, and the security needed to turn the Port of Philly into an LNG export terminal, exporting PA’s abundant and clean Marcellus Shale gas.
Not content to prosecute years-old accidents as “crimes” for the shale industry in his zeal to attack fossil energy, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a vicious radical running for governor this November, is now targeting mom and pop conventional drillers too. Specifically, he is investigating conventional drillers for spreading non-toxic brine on PA’s dirt roads in the summertime, a legal practice in the Keystone State (at least it was legal until last December), looking to prosecute someone, anyone, to grab another headline and stoke his radicalized base of supporters.
It’s a sad day in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf and his patsy at the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Sec. Pat McDonnell, have finally prevailed and will publish a final version of new regulations forcing the state to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–a carbon tax that is about to unleash economic hell on PA. The final step before RGGI, a $2.6 billion tax on PA’s electric ratepayers over the next ten years, becomes a defacto new law is for the final version of the regulation to be published in the Pennsylvania Register. Tomorrow’s edition will carry the RGGI regulation (full preview copy below).
New Jersey Resources’ Adelphia Gateway project converts an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook, into a natural gas pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued final approval for the project in December 2019 (see 
Last week Pennsylvania issued 12 new shale well permits, down three from the prior week. Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) had the most permits with four, all on the same pad in Susquehanna County. Southwestern had three permits all on the same pad in Susquehanna County. Chesapeake Energy also had a permit in Susquehanna County, making that county the top spot for new permits with eight last week. Ohio had no new shale permits issued last week. Bummer. West Virginia had just two permits, one for Southwestern Energy in Ohio County, and one for Antero Resources in Tyler County.
GAI Consultants, headquartered in Pittsburgh, is a planning, engineering & environmental consulting firm serving clients in the energy, transportation, development, government, and industrial markets. GAI has been in business since 1958 and has served the oil and gas industry since the early 1980s. The shale industry was a big boom for GAI’s business. Shale is helping GAI to grow again–exponentially. GAI announced last Friday the company has expanded further into the oil and gas industry with the acquisition of PGH Petroleum & Environmental Engineers LLC, headquartered in Austin, Texas.