Judge Rules Wayne Landowner Lawsuit re DRBC Frack Ban Continues
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani issued a couple of rulings in the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit that should encourage landowners in eastern PA whose property rights have been “taken” by the DRBC. The DRBC has prevented landowners in areas like Wayne and Pike counties from drilling for shale gas under their land for more than a decade.
NOTE: Our good friend Tom Shepstone has written an important post on this development on his Natural Gas Now website: DRBC Lawsuit Finally Going to Trial After Five Years! We encourage you to click and read it.
Read More “Judge Rules Wayne Landowner Lawsuit re DRBC Frack Ban Continues”
In February 2020 MDN brought you news about a new half-billion-dollar petrochemical plant that will convert Marcellus Shale gas into feedstock (chemicals) to be used in agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and transportation, coming in Clinton County, PA (see 
In early 2020 Pennsylvania raised $198.2 million from its version of a severance tax, called an impact fee, based on drilling activity from 2019, which was down from the previous year (see 
We’re catching up the permits issued over the past two weeks (prior to this week). Pennsylvania issued 11 permits during that time, and West Virginia issued 3 permits. Ohio issued no new shale drilling permits over the past two weeks.
A member of the PA Senate, Sen. Wayne Langerholc (R), and a member of the PA House, Rep. Jim Rigby (R), together penned a response to an 
UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, is buying Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million. UGI serves 700,000 customers across PA (and one county in Maryland). Mountaineer serves 215,000 customers across WV. Both companies are big buyers of Marcellus/Utica shale gas.
The Pennsylvania Marcellus rig count ended 2020 at its lowest for the year. There were 18 shale rigs working in mid-December, down from 25 at the same point in 2019. Oil and gas data provider Enverus (used to be called Drillinginfo) cautions we should not look for drillers to add rigs in 2021, even if the price of natgas goes higher. Enverus says PA’s Marcellus drillers have (our words) learned their lesson.
A well in the Marcellus Shale in (of all places) Plum Borough in Allegheny County, PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh) has become the longest onshore lateral drilled in the Marcellus Shale. Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley Exploration) has drilled and completed a well with a 20,060-foot lateral–3.8 miles long!
What if we gave the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) a $2.5 million grant to study a link between peanut butter and childhood cancer. Researchers could only use the money to study any potential link between peanut butter and kids getting rare cancers. Sounds absurd, right? What if there is NO link between peanut butter and cancer in kids? What if there IS a link to some other environmental factor like, say, an old uranium dumpsite nearby? But the remit is ONLY to research peanut butter. Sound silly? Sound stupid? Substitute “shale drilling” for “peanut butter” and you can see how absurd it is for Pennsylvania to announce awarding $2.5 million to Pitt to study a single potential cause for rare childhood cancers in southwestern PA.
In March 2019 MDN told you about National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) FM100 Project in northwestern Pennsylvania that will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) over the weekend published a final (revised) version of its Waste General Permit which governs how wastewater from shale fracking and produced water can be processed and reused for more drilling and fracking.
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), a special court set up to hear appeals of decisions by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), ruled on Wednesday that Sunoco Pipeline’s Mariner East 2 project does NOT have to reroute around Marsh Creek State Park in Chester County as ordered by the DEP. At least, not yet.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), the agency in charge of issuing permits for building the Mariner East pipeline projects, has just poked its head up to weigh in on another Energy Transfer project it issued permits to build: Revolution Pipeline. The PUC is proposing a $1 million penalty for “multiple violations” that led to an explosion of the pipeline as it entered service. The PUC also details a bunch of hoops ET must jump through in order to start service on the pipeline.