Chester County | Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sunoco Logistics
Chester Co DA Bullies Mariner East Pipe into Signing Consent Order
The Chester County, PA District Attorney, Democrat Deb Ryan, has pressured and bullied Energy Transfer (ET) and its Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary into signing a “consent decree” that guarantees if ET spills one cup of drilling mud or creates any kind of “public nuisance” in finishing up work on the Mariner East pipeline, the DA gets to haul the company into county court and charge it with a crime. The consent decree means in addition to the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) breathing down their necks, ET now gets a second master (AG Ryan) breathing down their necks too. Joy.
Read More “Chester Co DA Bullies Mariner East Pipe into Signing Consent Order”
Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) issues grants covering part of the cost for building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the PIPE grant projects in the past (
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been 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 
State legislators in Pennsylvania are attempting to restore some sanity to overregulation inflicted by unelected bureaucracies in the state, like the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Republicans have introduced and are pushing along a couple of bills that will reign in the DEP (and other overzealous agencies) in PA. One bill requires the legislature to approve any new regulation that impacts a regulated community by more than $1 million. Another bill allows third parties to assist the DEP in reviewing and approving certain permits. The DEP can’t seem to get its act together and there are always loooong delays in approving new permits.
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received a whopping 17 new permits spread across various counties and drillers. Ohio received just 2 new permits last week, both for Ascent Resources on the same pad. And West Virginia received a big 12 new permits split between two drillers: Antero Resources and Tug Hill Operating.
American Energy Partners, Inc. (AEPT), based in Allentown, PA, is a small but diversified company. They have their fingers in a number of different oil and gas pies, including subsidies in drilling, remediation, water, valuation services, and education. AEPT announced a new deal today to purchase three conventional oil and gas operators with assets in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia for $10.8 million. The three operators (unnamed) come with a collective 467 conventional wells and 1,250 MMcfe/d of natural gas production.
Have you ever heard the trite but true phrase, “words mean things”? Never has that been more true than in Pennsylvania and the simple word called “royalty.” Somewhere along the way the word “royalty” got watered down and changed. A new bill being introduced by PA State Rep. Eric Davanzo (Republican from Westmoreland County) will clear up the confusion and bastardization of the term royalty, making it easy for everyone to know what can and cannot be deducted from royalties with respect to oil and gas leases.
In July 2020, PA Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law House Bill (HB) 732, a bill that grants tax breaks to companies willing to build brand new petrochemical plants in the Keystone State–plants that use huge quantities of Marcellus Shale gas (see 
When you see the words “environmental justice,” that’s just another way of saying racist–or the new shorthand “woke.” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme assumes all fossil fuel-powered electric generating plants in the state are built in communities of color or in communities that are economically poor and therefore those communities can’t fight back against the injustice of being “polluted.” RGGI presumes fossil power plants are racist and sets out to correct the injustice by eliminating those power plants via taxing them out of existence.
Last October Energy Transfer (Sunoco Pipeline) pushed back against a demand by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the company’s Mariner East 2X pipeline project be rerouted one mile around Marsh Creek State Park (in Chester County, PA) following a drilling mud spill in August (see 
Some good news to share. GoExpedi, a “supply chain, e-commerce and analytics company” based in Houston, Texas, opened a 15,000 square foot warehouse in North Fayette earlier this week. The company provides supplies to oil, gas, and industrial companies. The company’s database offers more than 200,000 parts and supplies. This is the company’s first northeast hub.
We hate reporting these kinds of stories because of the pain and suffering experienced by the family involved, but report it we must. A contract worker (46-year-old man) who was working at a Cabot Oil & Gas well pad off Hoag Hill Road in Rush Twp. (Susquehanna County, PA) around midnight Tuesday was injured at the pad and rushed to the hospital in Montrose, PA. He later died at the hospital.
Just yesterday MDN told you that Chesapeake Energy had enrolled in the same program EQT Corporation previously enrolled in to certify its natural gas as “responsibly sourced” (see