It Appears Riverkeeper was Right! Penn LNG is Now Eddystone LNG
A little over two weeks ago, MDN reported that THE Delaware Riverkeeper was sounding the alarm (the perennial “sky is falling” group) that the Penn America LNG export facility had come back to life and is planning a new LNG export project near Philadelphia (see Riverkeeper Claims Dead Philly LNG Project has Come Back to Life). Well, shazam! They were right! At least, according to RBN Energy. What was called Penn LNG, an export facility planned for Chester County, PA (near Philly), is now called Eddystone LNG, planned for Eddystone Borough in Delaware County, PA (also near Philly). Read More “It Appears Riverkeeper was Right! Penn LNG is Now Eddystone LNG”
An important (precedential) court ruling to alert Pennsylvania surface (and mineral rights) owners to. The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled earlier this month that an oil-and-gas mineral rights owner does not have an automatic, unrestricted right to place a well on a separately owned surface estate. When the deed or lease contains no express surface-access right, the mineral owner must establish that using that surface is “strictly necessary”—not merely reasonable—to reach and develop the underlying oil and gas. The case in question concerns land in Westmoreland County but will almost certainly apply to other locations as well. 
Energy Transfer has asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) to restructure and dissolve the Sunoco Pipeline Company, separating its pipeline assets between two new entities. Energy Transfer NE NGL Pipelines LLC would own and operate the Mariner East system and other natural gas liquids pipelines, while Energy Transfer RP Pipelines LLC would control refined petroleum product pipelines. The proposal also would transfer Sunoco’s public utility operating certificates. Formal protests and intervention petitions are due July 27, 2026. 
For the past decade, landowners in Wayne and Pike counties in northeastern Pennsylvania have unfairly been denied the ability to profit from fracking on (and under) their property, simply because they happen to live inside the imaginary boundaries of the Delaware River Basin, an area under the iron hammer control of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). The DRBC, unlike its counterpart in the Susquehanna River Basin (SRBC), is controlled by left-wingers. They falsely claim that allowing fracking anywhere in the basin would destroy the water supply of 14 million people. Congress is now on the cusp of overturning this ongoing tragedy. 
On July 12, the Pennsylvania Senate and House passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law, a $50.84 billion General Fund budget. It was only 12 days late this year. This is a net-positive budget for the Marcellus/Utica industry. It contains no new taxes or fees on production, delivers a long-sought modernization that unlocks the deep Utica play, and builds legal scaffolding favorable to gas-fired power for data centers. The only new obligations — full-cement plugging and (for midstream-adjacent projects) data-center reporting — are modest. 
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company (Warren Buffett’s company), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2025 (see 
A long-running and favorite tactic of the environmental left is to use our own judicial system against us. On the federal level, foreign-backed groups like the Sierra Club, Earthworks, Food & Water Watch, and others have (in the past) challenged new pipeline or drilling projects, filing appeal after appeal up the line, blocking construction until said lawsuits were resolved. Last June (2025), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took away the left’s ability to block construction while lawsuits are filed and played out (see 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 28 new drilling permits last week, June 29 – July 5, down 3 from two weeks ago. Last week, Pennsylvania issued 18 new permits. Ohio issued 4 new permits. And, West Virginia issued 6 new permits. The drillers who received new permits included: Antero Resources (6), CNX Resources (10), EOG Resources (4), EQT (1), Expand Energy (3), and Range Resources (4). 
The Trump administration and its officials continue to aggressively push the Williams 125-mile Constitution Pipeline project, which would stretch from the prolific shale gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA, into and through New York State, to Schoharie County, NY, to move Marcellus gas into New York State and New England. In June, Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin visited Binghamton to advocate for reviving the long-stalled project (see 
Last week was (once again) noteworthy for the Baker Hughes rig count. Although the Marcellus/Utica count didn’t budge, the national count increased by another 7 rigs. The national count has risen over the last three weeks — by 18 rigs! The new national count, 580, is also the highest the combined count has been since May 2025. The combined M-U rig count remained at 36 active rigs for the eighth consecutive week. The M-U’s chief competitor, the Haynesville, maintained its count of 55 active rigs, operating 19 more than the M-U. 
Data center growth is rapidly reshaping Northeast power and natural gas markets, with projects clustering near transmission lines, substations, gas-fired power generation, and pipeline corridors. Virginia remains the epicenter, led by Northern Virginia’s massive hyperscale hub and tens of gigawatts of planned capacity. Ohio is emerging fast around Columbus, with more than 15 GW proposed. Pennsylvania could become a major growth story, pairing Marcellus/Utica gas resources with large campuses such as Homer City’s planned 4.5-GW gas-fired/data center redevelopment. However, PA is attempting to shoot itself in the foot with talk of both short- and long-term moratoriums on new data center construction. So, the jury is still very much out on how successful PA will be with data centers. 
Wow! Where did the last 10 years go? In June 2015, MDN brought you the news of two Pennsylvania business groups, the Delaware County Chamber and the Washington County Chamber, along with two labor unions, the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) with 25,000 members and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 66 with 7,000 members, joining forces to form the 
We love a good railroad story, and at its core, that’s what this story is. Investment firm FTAI Infrastructure has completed its acquisition of Tidewater Logistics, a barge-and-rail transloading company operating in Ohio, West Virginia, and Texas, for about $45 million in cash. Tidewater serves producers, shippers and industrial customers in Appalachian Basin and Gulf Coast shale and energy markets, making it complementary to FTAI’s Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway. Tidewater’s facilities include frac sand transloading in Steubenville, OH; Fairmont, WV; and Allenport, PA. 
Earlier this month, MDN brought you the news that Talen Energy would file an application to expand its power generation facility with two new gas-fired power units in Montour County, PA (see 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible, safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the June 27th Pennsylvania Bulletin that the SRBC approved and/or renewed 34 general water use permits in May for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Clinton, Lycoming, McKean, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties.