Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County Fails 2 Integrity Tests
NOTE: An important update on this post can be found here: Correction: Injection Well in McKean County Did NOT Fail Tests.
In January 2024, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a plan by Catalyst Energy to convert an existing conventional gas production well on Route 646 in Cyclone (Keating Township, McKean County, PA) into a shale wastewater injection well (see PA DEP Approves Shale Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County). The DEP approved the plan on Jan. 11, 2024. Residents who live nearby and are opposed appealed the decision to the PA Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), a special court set up to hear appeals of DEP decisions. The EHB issued an opinion on Dec. 27 that allowed the well to move forward (see PA EHB Allows Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County to Open). Catalyst commenced injections on Jan. 22, subject to mechanical integrity and other requirements. However, the well failed DEP mechanical integrity tests….twice. Yet it continues to inject. Read More “Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County Fails 2 Integrity Tests”
According to a recent report from PJM Interconnection, the manager of the electric grid in all or parts of 13 states plus D.C., three electric transmission zones that are wholly or partly in Pennsylvania are expected to see sharp increases in power demand from current and new data centers in the next few years. For all three zones, PJM says the increase in demand will mostly come from existing and planned new data centers. The solution? Build more Marcellus-fired power plants to meet the demand. 
Have you ever considered all the different goods and services required to plug an orphaned well? It’s a surprisingly long and complex list! You might think (as we did), “There’s an old well, pull up with a cement mixer, dump cement down the hole, and voila, it’s done.” Not so! The process begins with locating orphaned/abandoned wells, using drones and other equipment to sniff out leaking old wells, and attempting to ascertain ownership (land records, title searches, etc.). Then, there’s preparing the site (permits required), doing the work, and monitoring after it’s done. It’s a looooong list. 
Never in our wildest dreams did we see this one coming. And we must caution against too much hope. However, we are JAZZED. Last Friday, President Trump signed yet another executive order. This EO creates the National Energy Dominance Council, directing the new council to move quickly to increase domestic oil and gas production (see our companion post today for details). During comments with reporters at the EO signing, Trump vowed to complete the long-dead Pennsylvania Marcellus to New York State Constitution Pipeline! Trump’s own words: “We are going to get this done, and once we start construction, we’re looking at anywhere from nine to 12 months.” Holy smokes!!!! 
For the third week in a row, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count regained some of the rigs lost earlier this year. Two weeks ago, the rig count gained four rigs to 586. Last week the count regained another two rigs to 588. Note that for much of last year, the national count remained in a very tight range of 581-589. It seems like equilibrium is returning. As for the Marcellus/Utica, the rig count was a combined 34 last week—the same number for ten weeks in a row. It looks like we’ve hit an equilibrium in the M-U, too. 
Last December, MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection could find $600,000 to blow on “environmental justice” nonsense, but the very next day, it cried poverty that there’s not enough money in the budget to fund the Oil and Gas Regulatory Program (see 
For the week of Feb 3 – 9, the number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica to drill new shale wells remained healthy. Two weeks ago, 22 new permits were issued. Last week, the number increased to 24 new permits issued. The Keystone State (PA) issued 11 new permits last week. Nine permits went to Range Resources for two pads in Washington County. One permit each went to Snyder Brothers and EQT in Armstrong and Greene counties, respectively. 
Yesterday, MDN told you that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a “fast-track” plan from the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection (which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV) to change how the grid operator decides which new power plants can connect to the system first (see 
What Elon Musk’s audits of federal money payments to NGOs, states, and individuals are finding is beyond shocking. It’s criminal. There is MASSIVE fraud happening across all of government. As you’ll read in another post today, Lee Zeldin, Trump’s new EPA Administrator, found $20 BILLION in money transfers from the EPA to a bank the Biden people affected just before leaving. It is perhaps the biggest theft of money in history! The Biden folks called it “throwing gold bricks off the Titanic.” This is stuff people should go to jail for for the rest of their lives. President Trump put a pause on the transfer of money from certain programs (not Medicare, not Medicaid, not payments to individuals). The pause has Democrats, like PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, squealing like pigs being weaned from mother’s milk. Shapiro filed a lawsuit to force the return of mother’s milk. Typical. The Dems are spending junkies. 
A new player is entering the Marcellus looking to extract lithium from shale brine (wastewater), and it’s doing it in a big way in Susquehanna County in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania. Avonlea Lithium Corporation, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Rain City Resources Inc., will provide its newly-tested technology to Kendra II, based in Springville, PA, to provide an on-site plant to extract lithium from Marcellus brine. The new plant will be set up and operating by April 2025. 
The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) owns and manages more than 1.5 million acres of state game lands throughout the Commonwealth. The primary purpose of these lands is the management of habitat for wildlife and providing opportunities for lawful hunting and trapping. You might think PGC gets most of its revenue from hunting and trapping licenses and fees. You would be wrong. PGC allows shale drilling on some of its vast holdings, and leases and royalties generate 39% of the income for PGC (as of 2024). The problem (if you can call it a problem) is that royalty revenue from shale for the PGC varies widely from year to year. For example, the revenue flowing to PGC from shale during its last fiscal year decreased by a whopping 46%. But the PGC was ready. The way the PGC prepares for those wild swings is instructive for all landowners. 
A Washington County, PA, judge is closing the barn door about 12 years late. On February 7, Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brandon P. Neuman ruled Sunoco Pipeline, LLC (i.e., Energy Transfer) did not have the eminent domain authority to take property for the Mariner East Pipelines in 2013 from Bradley and Amy Simon (in Washington County), and possibly many other property owners. The case alleges that while ME gained eminent domain authority later, when the company negotiated with the Simons (and potentially others), it did not have that legal authority, yet it claimed it did. The Simons signed a lease they otherwise would not have signed if they had full information. They either would not have signed, or perhaps negotiated a bigger payment. That’s the gist of the story—that ME fraudulently presented claims. 
CNX Resources’ Radical Transparency™ program is a first-of-its-kind public-private collaboration announced between CNX and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in November 2023 (see 
According to an investigative reporter for Penn State, between 2018 and 2023, Pennsylvania fined Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Sunoco at least $42 million in connection to the construction of Mariner East II. Some $10 million of that came from a deal with the PA Attorney General’s office (who happened to be Josh Shapiro at the time) for supposed repeat contaminations of waterways, failures to report environmental damage, and the use of unapproved chemicals in drilling fluid (see