Bradford County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | ESG | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wyoming County (PA)
Chesapeake Signs Up with “Responsibly Sourced Gas” Program
In January EQT Corporation announced it would partner with a Denver, CO company calling itself “Project Canary” to run a test on two of its shale gas pads, to prove the natural gas produces is “certified responsibly sourced” (see EQT Partners with Project Canary on “Responsibly Sourced” NatGas). Yesterday Chesapeake Energy announced it will do the same thing, running a test on two well pads with multiple wells–one in Bradford County, PA, the other in Wyoming County, PA.
Read More “Chesapeake Signs Up with “Responsibly Sourced Gas” Program”
In what can only be characterized as a complete and utter failure of a Big Green lawsuit, yesterday a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) judge ordered Sunoco Logistics, builder of the Mariner East pipeline system, to pay a $2,000 fine (the equivalent of a few high-priced lunches) and talk more to local groups around Philadelphia that want to complain about the project. That’s the end result of a request by seven antis that began in November 2018 asking the PUC to shut down the entire three-pipeline project (see 
Only Pennsylvania, of the three active Marcellus/Utica drilling states, issued new shale drilling permits last week. But PA’s permits were more than enough to make up for Ohio and West Virginia. PA issued 20 new permits in 7 different counties, scattered across the state (although most of the permits were issued in the dry gas northeastern part of the state).
Last week MDN told you that Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA, had sued its joint venture partner Chesapeake Energy over Chessy’s refusal to allow Epsilon to drill four shale wells on land Chessy doesn’t want to drill (see 
Some days it’s tough. You try to keep your head held high, but then you read of someone you (used to) highly respect, someone like former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, Mike Krancer, who now supports Pennsylvania being forced to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is nothing more than an obscene carbon tax that would force gas-fired power plants out of existence. Krancer bases his support on the flimsiest of excuses: That the tax revenues raised by RGGI (coming out of the pockets of ALL Pennsylvanians) will help plug a few more of the hundreds of thousands of old/abandoned conventional oil and gas wells throughout the state. Really Mike?
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t typically 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. Just yesterday our headline story was about Epsilon suing Chesapeake over Chessy’s refusal to honor a jv agreement and allow Epsilon to drill four wells in Susquehanna County, PA (see 
For years PA’s small, independent conventional oil and gas drillers have objected to the one-size-fits-all regulations concocted by the Wolf DEP that applies the same regulations to small conventional drillers as those used for big shale drillers. The two types of drilling are apples and oranges. Making small conventional drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will bankrupt many of the smaller companies. As in previous years, a bill will soon be introduced to separate the regulations for the two…
In our opinion, we have yet to fully understand the long-term, permanent changes in society that have happened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are signs that things have permanently changed. For example, a significant number of people now work from home rather than commute to an office in downtown. Many workers like working from home better! In a signal that COVID long-term changes are impacting the Marcellus/Utica industry, two major M-U companies with office space in the Southpointe business park (Pittsburgh suburb in Washington County) are shopping a collective 213,000 square feet of office space they no longer need because their workers have permanently relocated to home offices.