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Sisters of the Corn Return – Sue Williams re Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline
Like a bad Stephen King horror flick, the Sisters of the Corn (our name for a group of leftist nuns in Lancaster County, PA) have returned to file yet another frivolous lawsuit against Williams over a pipeline that crosses their land–a pipeline (Atlantic Sunrise) that has been up and running for years. The Sisters claim an infringement of their “religious liberties” in the lawsuit. They tried this argument once before and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
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In line with a rise of COVID-19 cases in the general population throughout the state of Pennsylvania (and elsewhere), workers at the Shell ethane cracker site in Monaca, PA (near Pittsburgh) have seen a big jump in active coronavirus cases. As of yesterday, the number of active cases stood at 39. Wednesday the number was 31. Shell says most if not all of the cases are coming from offsite and onsite transmission among the 7,000 active workers is not a factor in the rising number.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues to block Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline gathering system in western PA from restarting. In September the DEP finally, after two years, gave ET permission to fix problems that caused the pipeline to explode. Even though ET has fixed the original site of the explosion, the DEP says there are other areas of concern and forbids certain sections of the pipeline from restarting, until…
On Tuesday, Talen Energy Corp., under extreme litigation pressure from the odious Sierra Club, announced it will eliminate the use of coal at all of the company’s wholly-owned facilities. Back in 2017 MDN brought you the news that Talen’s coal-fired Brunner Island Power Plant, located in York County, PA, is investing $100 million to retrofit the plant so it can burn 100% Marcellus Shale gas by 2028 (see 
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t actually do any of its own drilling. The company partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company does the drilling. Epsilon, according to its website, owns ~4,000 net acres in the PA Marcellus. They also own assets in Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin. On Tuesday Epsilon issued its third-quarter 2020 update, showing a bump up in revenue to $5.8 million in 3Q20 (vs. $5.2 million in 3Q19).
Eureka Resources, which operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, is doing really cool stuff. In October 2019 the company began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at one of its plants in Bradford County, PA (see 
Last week Pennsylvania issued a paltry 3 new shale well drilling permits (lowest we’ve seen in months), Ohio issued a single new permit, and West Virginia issued 5 new shale well permits. All 3 PA permits were issued in Greene County. The OH permit was issued in Carroll County (bit of a surprise). And all 5 WV permits were issued in Tyler County.
Radical anti-fossil fuel groups have not given up hope they can somehow, at the last minute, block the $10 billion Shell ethane cracker plant (about a year from being completed) from ever starting up. Perhaps Biden’s “victory” has given them a little boost of irrational exuberance? In 2015 the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an air permit for the cracker plant. Shell needs to tweak the permit with new information. Antis are asking PA to deny the new tweaks, claiming Shell wants to pollute the region even more. Shell says the tweaks reflect new realities, including LOWER emissions.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continue to push a plan that will raise Pennsylvania residents’ electric rates by 50% or more, a carbon tax plan called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The DEP will conduct 10 three-hour virtual public hearings between Dec. 8 and 14. There will be no in-person hearings due to concerns over COVID-19.
The radicalized Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) never gives up. In June 2017, the PEDF won a case at the PA Supreme Court by the skin of their teeth (see 
Although the national election is still undecided (looking like Biden, a complete disaster), in almost every other respect Republicans (i.e. pro-shale candidates) won, big-time. Republicans gained seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, look to be keeping a majority in the U.S. Senate, and picked up seats in many state legislatures. Leftist Democrats poured BIG money into Pennsylvania in an attempt to flip both the PA House and Senate from red to blue. They failed. And that’s very good for shale energy in the state.
During the Williams third-quarter 2020 update yesterday, CEO Alan Armstrong shared some very interesting, and relevant (to the Marcellus/Utica) comments. Armstrong said that two important pipeline projects to carry M-U gas to other markets, the Southeastern Trail expansion project and the Leidy South project, are both in the midst of coming online–ahead of schedule.
In August Pennsylvania hiked its permit fee to drill a new shale well to be the most expensive of any state in the country, from $5,000 to $12,500 (see 
We’re speechless (which doesn’t happen often). The liberal, anti-shale Democrats who write and manage the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have endorsed Donald J. Trump for president! They had plenty of criticism for Trump in their lukewarm “endorsement,” but the fact they did endorse Trump is, well, big news. The Post-Gazette editors, who haven’t endorsed a Republican for president since 1972, say “Mr. Biden is too old for the job, and fragile.” We agree.