Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Wyoming County (PA)
NEPA Landowners Meet to Discuss Equinor Lawsuit, Chesapeake Ch. 11
Northeastern Pennsylvania landowners who are leased either with Equinor (formerly called Statoil) or Chesapeake Energy met last night in an open-air pavilion at the Wyoming County, PA Fairgrounds. They were there to discuss a lawsuit against Equinor for shorting landowners on royalties, and to discuss Chesapeake Energy’s bankruptcy.
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Energy Transfer (ET), builder and operator of the Revolution Pipeline in southwestern Pennsylvania, last week received permission from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reroute a section that “slipped” after record rainfall two years ago, resulting in an explosion in Beaver County.
CNX Resources has applied for permits to drill up to seven new Utica shale gas wells on a single pad in Washington Township on the grounds of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County. The reason it’s raising a few eyebrows is that the new pad is in the general vicinity of the company’s faulty Shaw 1G well.
Last Friday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a “settlement” (with no admission of guilt) with MarkWest Energy, with MarkWest paying a $150,000 fine for failure to monitor for air emissions leaks at its Liberty Bluestone facility in Butler County, PA.
Last week the extremely unpopular Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Wolf, vetoed a bill that would have given all citizens in the Keystone State, via their elected representatives in the state legislature, a say in whether or not the state should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a huge new $2.4 billion tax on coal and gas-fired power plants that will drive up the cost of electricity dramatically across the state.
Two days ago MDN brought you news that natural gas prices in the Marcellus/Utica region are about to get really ugly, at least for the next couple of months (see 
Unrepentant. That’s the best single word we can think of describing the attitude of “leaders” in Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) who illegally passed their own set of environmental laws, violating the PA state constitution, in a bid to prevent a safe saltwater injection well from being built in a rural location in the town. Grant continues to use radicalized lawyers in their lawbreaking bid to prevent the well.
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 
S&P Global analysts have been looking at natural gas production numbers for Pennsylvania. The most recently available data is from June (numbers are always delayed a few months). S&P found that shale gas production in PA dropped 2% in June from May, to 18.48 Bcf/d. June’s numbers were essentially flat to the same time in 2019.
Last week Ohio finally broke the drought of not issuing permits for new shale wells in the Buckeye State. Finally! Last week Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits for wells on three well pads. Ohio issued 4 new permits for wells on two well pads. And West Virginia issued 1 new permit.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued modified permits for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in three southeast PA locations (Delaware and Chester counties). Each location has faced problems with underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD). The modifications allow a different type of installation method to be used–open trench.
Last year MDN shared with you the rumor that Exxon Mobil was sniffing around Pennsylvania, investigating the prospect of building a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker like the Shell cracker being built near Pittsburgh. Those rumors went on for a while and even included evaluation of the Philadelphia area, not just Pittsburgh. Last week Exxon said unequivocally they have no active plans for such a facility in the Keystone State. Bummer.
We don’t know if PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania “reporters” are just sloppy in their reporting, or if they intentionally lie. Either way, it doesn’t look good for StateImpact. PBS reporter Jon Hurdle’s latest Big Green hit piece, published yesterday on StateImpact, is wholly manufactured out of nothing. He claims there are continuing problems with drilling for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project at Snitz Creek in Lebanon County, PA. There are not.
We love U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. He’s smart, articulate, and a supporter of all forms of energy, including fossil fuels. He also doesn’t suffer climate change fools well. Brouillette visited the Shell ethane cracker plant under construction in southwestern PA yesterday. He had some great things to say about petrochemicals, fracking, and (yes) even about so-called climate change.