PA DEP 2020 Annual O&G Report: Highest NatGas Production Ever
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2020 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the fifth year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. Don’t worry, we’ve turned it into a convenient PDF for MDN readers. What does the 2020 report show? While permits issued and the number of new wells drilled have both gone down (again), gas production has gone up (again)–to a new record high.
Read More “PA DEP 2020 Annual O&G Report: Highest NatGas Production Ever”
All three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits, all but one of them for the same well pad in Greene County. Ohio issued 3 new permits, two on a single pad in Monroe County. And West Virginia issued just 1 new permit last week–to a company we had not previously heard of.
Politicians derive their power from touching *your* money. They love to take money out of one of your pockets, handle it (siphon some of it off for themselves and their favorite cronies), and then put some (not all) of it back into another of your pockets–all while telling you that you should enjoy the violation you’ve just received. This is the elaborate hoax Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and those who want to slap an insane, regressive carbon tax on all Pennsylvanians are attempting with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–a carbon tax aimed at eliminating coal-fired power plants and vastly reducing the number of Marcellus-fired power plants.
We finally come to the end of a saga that began nearly three years ago, in Sept. 2018 when six men were charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
A small group of extremist left-wing Democrats in Pittsburgh are demanding Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, himself a Democrat and long-time supporter of the Marcellus Shale industry, turn against shale. Last week around 30 fossil fuel haters delivered a petition signed by 300 fellow haters to Fitzgerald’s office. He didn’t cave to the pressure, so the haters became more aggressive, going to Fitzgerald’s house yesterday in their attempts to bully him into submission. The cops told them to clear out or get arrested.
Last night the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a virtual hearing on a compromise plan between Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics and the DEP to allow ET/Sunoco to complete construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in the Marsh Creek State Park area (Chester County) where there have been some “issues” that halted work in the area. Given the buildup by the anti-fossil fuel left to turn out and mouth off at the hearing, we’re struck that (so far) it is radio silence in mainstream media about the hearing. We can’t find a single story about the hearing. We do, however, have a report on more than two dozen pro-pipeline speakers who turned out for the virtual hearing. Perhaps that’s why the media is silent?
Adelphia Gateway, a plan to convert an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook, recently received permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin final the final bits of construction (see 
A federal court in Pennsylvania upheld the findings of a U.S. Dept. of Labor investigation that oil and gas contract worker Henkels & McCoy Inc. owes big money in back wages and overtime to 362 workers at 11 worksites in five states, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, and (yes) even in New York too. The company must now pay $1,085,830 in back wages and damages.
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” (See below for the full quote.) Yesterday Pennsylvania Democrats unveiled their latest “generous gifts” they’re promising to bestow on Pennsylvanians from the public treasury if Gov. Wolf gets his way and imposes a Marcellus-killing carbon tax on electric power generation. The Dems figure they can raise about $300 million a year via a carbon tax and they have a wish list bigger than your wildest dreams for where they’ll spend it. One tiny problem for the Dems…