PA EHB Allows Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County to Open
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. More than 40 unhappy residents of Cyclone appealed the approval a few months later (see Sanctioned Lawyer Meets Cyclone Residents Against Injection Well). Even as the appeal played out, construction to convert the well continued—that is, until November, when a special state court stopped construction (see PA EHB Blocks Work on Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County). That same court issued an opinion on Dec. 27 that allows work to finish the well to continue and allows the well to open. Read More “PA EHB Allows Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County to Open”
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased three weeks ago, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589 (see 
Last week, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had not followed up on the cleanup work needed for a shale well drilled some 12 years ago (see 
The dataheads (sounds better than geeks or eggheads) at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an interesting analysis on Friday detailing which states export the most and import the most electricity. In 2023, Pennsylvania exported 83.4 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity to other states in the PJM electric grid. That’s roughly 26% of all the electric power the Keystone State produced. Meanwhile, for the first time in years (maybe in forever?) Virginia became the #1 state importing electricity, importing 50.1 million MWh. Virginia is also in PJM, so it’s not a stretch to suggest Pennsylvania’s electric exports went (largely) to Virginia. 
For the week of Dec 9 – 15, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica remained healthy. There were 22 new permits issued last week, down just a bit from the 28 issued the week before. The Keystone State (PA) issued 17 new permits, with the bulk of them, 11, going to a single driller, PennEnergy Resources, for a single pad in Beaver County. Seneca Resources scored three new permits in Tioga County. One permit each was issued to Pennsylvania General Energy (Lycoming County), Coterra Energy (Susquehanna County), and CNX Resources (Westmoreland County). 
In November, MDN told you that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
Penneco Environmental Solutions wants to build a second wastewater injection well in Plum Borough (Allegheny County), PA, next to an existing injection well. Penneco’s first wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, overcoming all sorts of smears, slanders, and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased two weeks ago, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589 (see 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. Yesterday, the SRBC board approved 14 new (or renewed) water withdrawal requests within the basin, four for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. Coterra Energy received two water request approvals, and Expand Energy (Chesapeake Energy & Southwestern Energy) received the other two. 
PennEnergy Resources, LLC, the 11th largest shale driller in Pennsylvania, agreed to a “deal” with the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ), the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Josh Shapiro Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to pay a $2 million fine and spend another $3.6 million on “upgrades” related to air emissions at its well pads. Based on inspections done in 2018 (six years ago!), the EPA accused PennEnergy of illegal air emissions at five “facilities” (well pads) in Butler County, PA. Yet PennEnergy is being forced to “fix” 17 of its oil and gas production facilities and implement “partial measures” at an additional 32 facilities in Butler County and neighboring Lawrence County. 
Yesterday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported five states produced more than 70% of the record 113.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2023. Two of the five were in the Marcellus/Utica: Pennsylvania (18% of the country’s gas) and West Virginia (8% of the country’s gas). We did some digging and found that when adding the production from PA, WV, and OH, the three together represented 31.5% of all the natural gas produced in the U.S. in 2023. It is an astonishing fact! 
Pennsylvania assesses an impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) on shale drillers, raising revenues that are paid to local municipalities and the black hole of Harrisburg politicians. Yesterday, the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) issued an estimate for how much the impact fee will raise this year, which will be distributed next year. The IFO says it thinks, based on the price of low natural gas and the number of new and existing wells, that PA will generate $163.8 million from the impact fee in 2024, a decrease of $15.8 million (8.8%) from 2023. Looking back further, the price is down $115.1 million (41%) from 2022. Why did impact fee revenues drop so dramatically over the past two years? 
