ET Makes Significant Progress Cleaning Up Marsh Creek Lake
While drilling in Chester County in August 2020 in the Marsh Creek State Park area, Energy Transfer’s (ET) Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see Mariner East 2X Construction Causes Another Drilling Mud Spill). In this case, an estimated 8,100 gallons of non-toxic drilling mud came up in a small section of the 535-acre Marsh Creek Lake. It was a costly episode for ET. In December, the state announced a gun-to-the-head “agreement” with ET that forced ET to pay a $4 million fine and spend another $4 million (or more) to dredge and fix the area, with an extra $341,000 in civil penalties for permit violations as the cherry on top (see PA Charges Mariner East Pipeline $8M+ to Fix Marsh Creek Lake). ET is making excellent progress on cleaning up Marsh Creek Lake.
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For the week of July 25-31, the three Marcellus/Utica states issued 24 permits to drill new shale wells, up from 16 the prior week. However, in a major turnaround, Pennsylvania only issued two new permits, one to Chesapeake Energy and the other to Olympus Energy. Ohio had the lion’s share of new permits, issuing 14. Eight of Ohio’s permits went to Encino Energy, and four to Utica Resources Operating. West Virginia issued eight new permits, with seven of them going to Antero Resources.
Coterra Energy, formed last October when Cabot Oil & Gas merged with Cimarex Energy, issued its second quarter update yesterday. The company made $1.2 billion in profit last quarter, versus making just $30 million a year ago. Natural gas production in the Marcellus stayed pretty much even at 2.22 Bcf/d. The company generated over $1 billion in free cash flowing during 2Q–one of the highest, if not the highest, we’ve seen. Coterra uses its free cash flow to issue dividends, buy back shares, and retire debt sooner.
In July 2018, a group of 100+ southwestern Pennsylvania landowners sued EQT for failure to pay them rental fees for storing natural gas under their properties (see 
According to Wikipedia, Elizabeth, PA is a borough in Allegheny County, on the east bank of the Monongahela River, where Pennsylvania Route 51 crosses, 15 miles upstream (south) of Pittsburgh and close to the county line. The population was 1,493 at the 2010 census. Very rural. Olympus Energy wants to drill a well in the township. The pad would sit about 1,700 feet (one-third of a mile) away from Elizabeth Forward High School. Some of the parents of students, and some of the administration, are pushing back against Olympus’ drilling plan, using the kiddies as an excuse.
What makes an oil and gas company (specifically a driller) a “bad actor”? Anti-fossil fuel zealots believe they’ve found a clever way of smearing Marcellus drillers and painting them as “bad actors” by citing how many notices of violation (NOVs) the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued to a driller. The problem is, those notices are highly inconsistent and many times are for relatively minor (quickly fixable) “infractions” against regulations. Citing a high number of NOVs sounds impressive and scares people, which is the important thing for antis.
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 
One of the criticisms MDN has levied against the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is that each state is attempting to “go it alone” with respect to attracting a $2 billion investment from the federal government for a hydrogen and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) hub in our region (see 
Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 2644 was passed into law, becoming Act 96 of 2022. The new law requires the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to use a portion of new federal funding to create a grant program to support experienced well-plugging companies that work to maximize the volume of orphan wells being plugged in the Commonwealth. It also keeps the right to raise bonding amounts for conventional wells with the legislature rather than allowing PA’s unelected Democrat bureaucrats in the bowels of the DEP’s Environmental Quality Board (EQB) from doing it–which has the left screaming bloody murder.
In early 2013 the Pittsburgh International Airport and Allegheny County, PA, signed a deal with CONSOL Energy (now CNX Resources) to lease 9,000 acres surrounding the airport for natural gas drilling (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) got blocked on July 1 by PA Commonwealth Court (see 
Some politicians make us ill. One of them is John Fetterman, currently Pennsylvania’s undistinguished Lt. Governor and the Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate to take over the seat being vacated by Pat Toomey. Fetterman is a radial socialist who, in 2016, signed a pledge to ban all fracking nationwide, including his home state of PA. Now that he’s running for the Senate, Fetterman has changed his tune and thinks that at least some fracking is OK. He is a liar.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for governor of the Keystone State, has once again targeted a shale energy company in his zeal to prove he despises the Marcellus even more than current Gov. Tom Wolf does (burnishing his credentials with the environmental left who makes up his base). Yesterday Shapiro’s office issued a press release announcing that the Big Man has bullied Southeast Directional Drilling, a subcontractor of National Fuel Gas Supply Corporation (i.e. Seneca Resources), into pleading guilty to spilling nontoxic drilling mud into a creek so small it doesn’t have a name. Southeast will have to pay a $15,000 fine.