Radical Antis File Lawsuit Aiming to Shut Down Shell PA Cracker
Yesterday two radicalized Big Green groups–the Environmental Integrity Project (based in D.C.) and the Clean Air Council (based in Philadelphia)–filed a lawsuit against the Shell Polymers Monaca Plant (ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA), claiming the plant has repeatedly violated federal air pollution limits. The lawsuit requests the court assess huge fines and force it close down unless it can operate without any further violations of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and the federal Air Pollution Control Act (APCA). In other words, the radicals seek to shut down the $10 billion plant and keep it shut down–throwing 600 permanent employees out of work. Nice people at the Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council, eh?
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ECA Marcellus Trust I, the royalty interest holder in some of the wells drilled and maintained by Greylock Energy in Greene County, PA, announced it would issue a payout (the equivalent of a dividend) to unitholders of 4.3 cents per unit for 1Q23. That is down from 4Q22 when the Trust paid out 12.4 cents per unit, and down from 3Q22 when the Trust paid out 18 cents per unit. The company continues to hold back some profits ($90,000 in 1Q23) in order to build a cash reserve.
Spotlight PA, a partisan Democrat “newsroom” (propaganda outfit) powered by the Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with Harrisburg Patriot-News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF PBS Public Media, is taking aim at the conventional drilling industry. In an article about the “crisis” of unplugged orphaned and abandoned conventional oil and gas wells, Spotlight PA, via interviewees, says the $400 million coming from the federal government is not nearly enough money to plug some 200,000+ old wells in the state.
New shale permits issued for May 1-7 in the Marcellus/Utica rose slightly from the prior week. There were 20 new permits issued last week, up from 18 in the prior week. Last week’s tally included 15 new permits for Pennsylvania, 5 new permits for Ohio, and no new permits in West Virginia. Last week the top receiver of new permits was PennEnergy Resources, with 5 permits issued in Armstrong County, PA. Chesapeake Energy was second-highest, with 4 permits issued in Bradford County, PA.
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA), a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Big Green group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (
A laughably fake “report” just published by the University of Pennsylania (UPenn) and the far-left group Resources for the Future (RFF) makes this wild claim about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a Marcellus-killing carbon tax scheme that will shut down most coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in the state: “Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative would lower Pennsylvania emissions, add to state revenues, and have little to no impact on electricity rates.” Yeah, right. UPenn/RFF are trying to sell a bridge in Brooklyn too, just in case you’re in the market to buy one.
Last November, MDN told you about a lawsuit filed by a family in Washington County, PA, against Chevron (now EQT) for drilling and fracking done in 2011-2012 near the family’s home (see 
Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, along with 67 other business associations and local chambers of commerce, sent a letter to Gov. Josh Shapiro and the PA legislature urging them to take “decisive action” in reforming the state’s “dysfunctional and unpredictable permitting system.” Among the signatories of the letter were shale groups, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) of Pennsylvania, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA).
THE Delaware Riverkeeper appears to be obsessed with New Fortress Energy’s plan to liquefy natural gas in Bradford County, PA, and ship it via rail and truck to a former DuPont dynamite factory site in New Jersey along the Delaware River for export. Riverkeeper released a “report” (propaganda) bashing the LNG export plan. Riverkeeper paid a consulting firm that hires itself out to Big Green groups to produce the report.
Yesterday, the management of NextEra Energy announced it has officially lost its collective mind. The company is selling its two natural gas pipeline investments–one in Texas and the other right here in the heart of the Marcellus Shale–because it wants to concentrate 100% on unreliable (and government-funded) “renewable” energy projects instead. You may recall that NextEra bought Meade Pipeline Co LLC for $1.37 billion in 2019 (see 
On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced her office has filed criminal charges against two men for falsifying paperwork and risking catastrophe while working on a natural gas pipeline project in western PA. The AG’s Environmental Crime Section and the US Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigated a case of suspected fraud in falsifying records for portions of a MarkWest Liberty Pipeline to transport NGLs.
The Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA (near Pittsburgh) has experienced a number of problems over the past six months during startup, including flaring and foul odors (see 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Buffalo, NY, is the parent company for Marcellus/Utica driller Seneca Resources and the parent of midstream company Empire Pipeline. Earlier this week, NFG issued its latest quarterly update. NFG operates on a weird fiscal year system. This latest update is for the company’s second quarter, which would be everybody else’s first quarter update. The big news from the update is that Seneca Resources has agreed to acquire upstream assets in northwestern Pennsylvania from Southwestern Energy for $127 million.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues its delay, deny, and defend strategy with a PennEnergy Resources to draw water from Big Sewickley Creek for use in fracking operations. More than two years ago PennEnergy requested permission to draw water from the creek. So far, with the help of anti-fossil fuel groups pressuring the DEP, PennEnergy hasn’t withdrawn a single 8-ounce cup of water from the creek.