Coterra CEO Praises Shale Revolution, Calls Dimock “Prolific”
Coterra Energy CEO Tom Jorden had a sit-down interview at the 2025 J.P. Morgan Energy, Power, Renewables and Mining Conference on Tuesday of this week. Coterra is the successor company of Cabot Oil & Gas after Cabot merged with Cimarex Energy in October 2021 (see Cimarex Takes Over Cabot, Merged Co. Called “Coterra Energy”). Cabot drilled exclusively for natural gas in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus in Susquehanna County. Cimarex drilled in both the Permian (Texas) and Anadarko (Oklahoma) basins. Cimarex was mainly an oil driller. The combined company has the flexibility to allocate money and people to whichever commodity, oil or gas, is turning a better profit. Currently, profitability favors more gas drilling. Jorden had some interesting things to say about his company’s Marcellus program. Read More “Coterra CEO Praises Shale Revolution, Calls Dimock “Prolific””
A Boston-based company, Gradiant, issued a press release to make a really big, really important announcement: The company’s lithium business, called alkaLi, will design, build, own, and operate a commercial lithium production facility in the Marcellus Shale Formation of Pennsylvania beginning in early 2026. The 
Infinity Natural Resources (INR), headquartered in Morgantown, WV, focuses 100% on the Marcellus/Utica. The company went public earlier this year with a $265 million ($20/share) initial public offering, giving INR a $1.18 billion market capitalization (see 
Environment-related permitting in Pennsylvania, overseen by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six months for approval, instead of the policy-mandated 14 days. According to a DEP press release from last November, the problem was fixed (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) announced the distribution of $164,592,500 in natural gas impact fees collected from producers for the 2024 reporting year. The bad news is that the impact fee raised $15 million less than it did in 2023, the prior year. The good news is that the state Independent Fiscal Office predicts the impact fee for 2025 will soar by $70 million to roughly $235 million (see 
Last week, for the eighth week in a row, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count dropped, down by one rig to its lowest level since November 2021. This is the first time we’ve seen a slide in the count for eight weeks (or more) since September 2023. The national rig count continues in free fall, although perhaps the rate of descent is slowing. The Marcellus/Utica count remained the same last week, at a combined 36 active rigs. The Pennsylvania Marcellus operated 18 rigs. The Ohio Utica operated 11 rigs. And West Virginia operated seven rigs. 
The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) is out with an initial estimate for how much money will be raised and distributed from the 2025 impact fee assessment. The IFO projects that impact fee revenue will increase by $70 million in 2025 compared to the revenue collected in 2024. IFO predicts revenues will hit around $235 million. The impact fee is PA’s version of a severance tax. The impact fee generated $164.6 million in 2024 and $179.6 million in 2023. 
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT (Penn-Trafford), located in Westmoreland County, PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy (now CNX Resources) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT finally struck out (legally) at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in May 2020 (see 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the June 21 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC renewed 38 general water use permits in May for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Cameron, Clearfield, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. So far in 2025, the SRBC has issued or renewed 225 general water use permits for shale gas development. 
It’s not often this happens. Last week, for the week of Jun 9 – 15, only Pennsylvania issued new permits to drill shale wells. Neither Ohio nor West Virginia issued any new shale permits. Bummer. PA issued 18 new permits last week. Eight of the permits went to Pennsylvania General Energy for a single pad in Lycoming County. Another six permits went to Range Resources for a single pad, also in Lycoming County. Ergo, 14 of the 18 permits were issued in Lycoming County. 
Last week, MDN told you that EQT’s vice president of midstream, Robert Wingo, was moving on to another job (see 
A month ago, NRG Energy announced a deal to acquire LS Power’s portfolio of natural-gas power plants in a deal valued at roughly $12 billion, including debt, that will expand NRG’s footprint in Texas and along the East Coast (see 
When referring to Big Green groups in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, we often refer to the groups as “colluding,” meaning they coordinate their legal and public relations attacks against fossil fuel companies. It is something we have long suspected but (unfortunately) can’t prove definitively. Somebody is about to prove it. Several of these groups, including POWER Interfaith, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, Clean Air Council, Vote Solar, PennEnvironment, and the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group, attacked a recent proposal by Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) to raise rates. PGW is asking the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) to order these groups to provide internal communications that would prove they have been colluding together.