Pennsylvania

Centre County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Pro & Anti Drilling Increasingly Divides Along Party Lines
February 10, 2012February 10, 2012

With the new Pennsylvania law to regulate Marcellus drilling about to be signed by Gov. Tom Corbett, counties are already gearing up to vote on whether or not to accept the new impact fee provided for in the legislation. Although support or lack of support for Marcellus and Utica drilling cuts across political party lines, increasingly it tends to be Republicans in favor of drilling, and Democrats against. Take Centre County (State College area, smack in the very middle of PA) as an example, where commissioners are already planning a vote.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

NE PA Town Votes to Prohibit Drilling, Approve Wind Farms
February 10, 2012February 10, 2012

Officials in Spring Brook Township (Lackawanna County), PA voted last night to prohibit shale gas drilling in half of the township while at the same time they approved designated areas for commercial wind farms. Those same officials acknowledged their vote to ban gas drilling may be meaningless under the newly passed Marcellus drilling state law about to be signed by Gov. Corbett, but they went ahead and voted anyway, having worked a year-and-a-half on the new zoning changes.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Former PA DEP Head Says Fracking Doesn’t Contaminate Aquifers
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

Former PA Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger has been known to be a sharp critic of the drilling industry. He minces no words. If he believes drillers have caused a problem, he calls them out. Equally, he doesn’t shy away from defending hydraulic fracturing as the best, and safest, way of mining natural gas. He states outright that Marcellus fracking has never, not once, contaminated a water aquifer with chemicals.

Hanger is quoted extensively in an article on fracking hysteria in today’s New York Post:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation

Key Dates/Events for New PA Impact Fee
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

With the passage of the new Marcellus drilling law in Pennsylvania that establishes an impact fee, what happens next? The StateImpact website has a helpful timeline, which includes:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

New Marcellus Drilling Law Passes PA House, Awaits Gov’s Sig
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

New Marcellus drilling legislation passed the Pennsylvania House yesterday by a vote of 101-90. The same measure passed the PA Senate earlier this week by a vote of 31-19. The only thing left before it becomes law is a signature by Gov. Tom Corbett, who said he looks forward to signing it. The new law will establish, for the first time in PA, a per-well-drilled impact fee. The fee is assessed on a sliding scale from $40,000 to $60,000 for the first year, decreasing each year for a 15-year period after that. The new law also tightens environmental regulations.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PennEnvironment Says Ban PA Drilling Based on Violations Data
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

PennEnvironment released a study yesterday of what they call “environmental violations” by Marcellus Shale drillers in Pennsylvania for the past four years (a copy of the study is embedded below). It is a skewed analysis of citations issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from 2008 to 2011. By PennEnvironment’s own admission, about one-third of the 3,355 DEP violations over the past four years are paperwork-related.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Green Groups Split on Support for New PA Drilling Law
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

New drilling legislation, including an impact fee, has passed the Pennsylvania Senate and debate began last night in the PA House. Debate will continue today. Passage is expected this week, perhaps as early as today. As MDN pointed out yesterday, the mostly anti-drilling organization Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) gave the new legislation a lukewarm, half-hearted endorsement as “the best thing we can get right now” (see this MDN story).

However, the mostly anti-drilling Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), which works closely with the PEC, gave the legislation a more positive endorsement, calling it “a tremendous step forward.” From the CBF press release:

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Landowner Coalition News | Pennsylvania | Somerset County

Southwest PA Landowner Group Forms with 11,300 Acres
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

A group of landowners in Somerset County, PA (southwestern part of the state) has formed and is looking to lease a block of 11,300 acres of land for shale oil and gas drilling. The group is called the Casselman Valley Landowner Group and is conducting meetings to recruit new members.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PEC’s Lukewarm Statement of Support for New PA Drilling Law
February 7, 2012February 7, 2012

The mostly anti-drilling organization Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) issued an interesting statement yesterday, commenting on new Marcellus drilling legislation that will likely be passed and signed into law this week in PA. Here is the entire press release:

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

New Deal on Marcellus Shale Well Impact Fee in PA
February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

Pennsylvania legislators in both the PA House and Senate have debated for months on passage of new Marcellus drilling legislation. The main sticking point has been a local impact fee. Last week, Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican now in his second year in office, sent the Republican-controlled legislature a “hurry up and get it done” letter. Legislators were busy finalizing details over the weekend and a plan has now emerged. Likely to be voted on this week, the plan calls for the amount of the fee to vary depending on the rate of inflation and the commodity price of natural gas.

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Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Landfills | Pennsylvania

Scranton Landfill Applies for Permit to Mill Marcellus Cuttings
February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

For years, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, a privately owned and operated municipal solid waste landfill located in Dunmore, PA (a Scranton suburb) has accepted already-processed cuttings, or rock waste, from Marcellus Shale drillers. The landfill filed a permit application in December with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that would allow it to accept unprocessed cuttings—cuttings in a non-solid form—and mix it with a lime-based material to solidify it. The process of mixing it is called milling.

The landfill uses milled cuttings as a soil replacement to cover the landfill at the end of each day.

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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Shell | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Waiting Game: Cracker Plants Talk to Property Owners
February 3, 2012February 3, 2012

West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are all in the hunt to land an ethane cracker plant in their respective states (see the long list of MDN stories on a potential cracker plant in the Marcellus/Utica Shale region). According to WV Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette, Shell and another unnamed company are now in talks with private property owners. That is, the deals are now being negotiated, and it’s a waiting game to see the outcome.

All three states have offered huge tax incentives to land the plant. Shell originally set January for an announcement, but changed it a few weeks ago to be February.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pennsylvania | Steuben County | Tioga County (PA)

RailAmerica Buys Wellsboro & Corning Short Line Railroad
February 3, 2012February 3, 2012

One of the interesting but often-overlooked stories of the rapid growth of Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling is the revival of short line railroads. As drillers enter an area, equipment and materials need to be shipped to that area. Sand, especially, is used in large quantities, and short lines are the most economical way of getting sand to an active drilling area.

One of the short line railroads to came roaring back to life not so long ago is the Wellsboro and Corning Railroad (WCOR), running from Wellsboro in northeastern PA to just across the border connecting to Corning, NY.

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Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Washington County

Washington County Commissioners to Vote on Modifying Gas Lease
February 2, 2012February 2, 2012

Commissioners for Washington County, PA will vote today on modifying an agreement they have with Range Resources to allow drilling for gas at a county-owned park. The revisions will limit how much time Range has to complete drilling and extracting natural gas, and it also ups the royalty percentage.

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA

NiSource to Build New $145M Marcellus Pipeline in PA
February 2, 2012February 2, 2012

NiSource, which owns and operates over 15,000 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines, will build a new Marcellus Shale pipeline “through western Pennsylvania” they announced yesterday. Details, including the one driller signed on so far, are thin. Here is what we know:

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Accidents | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Cabot Accuses EPA of Cherry Picking Old Water Test Data
February 1, 2012February 1, 2012

Cabot Oil & Gas has accused the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of “cherry picking” old water test data to justify its intrusion into Dimock, PA. For a quick backgrounder on the situation in Dimock and why Cabot is being blamed by some for pollution of a handful of local water wells in the area, see this MDN story.

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