Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Potter County | Regulation | Roulette Oil & Gas
Roulette O&G Dinged by PA DEP for Inactive Well in Potter County
Roulette Oil & Gas drilled the Guardian Pad B 6H shale gas well in February 2011 in Hebron Township, Potter County. The well was granted inactive status on September 7, 2012. The inactive status expired on September 7, 2017. At that point, the well should have been plugged but was not. On August 23, 2023, Roulette applied to extend inactive status and was sent a final denial of that request on February 14, 2024, by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). On January 21, the DEP and Roulette Oil & Gas signed a consent order and agreement requiring the company to plug a shale gas well that has been, for all intents, abandoned for 8 years.
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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 
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