Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pennsylvania | Potter County | Seneca Resources | Southwestern Energy | Tioga County (PA)
Seneca Resources Buys Southwestern Assets in Tioga County, PA
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.
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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 So far, with the help of anti-fossil fuel groups pressuring the DEP, PennEnergy hasn’t withdrawn a single 8-ounce cup of water from the creek.
New shale permits issued for Apr. 24-30 in the Marcellus/Utica fell from the prior week. There were 18 new permits issued last week, down from 25 in the prior week. Last week’s tally included 8 new permits for Pennsylvania, 4 new permits for Ohio, and 6 new permits in West Virginia. Last week the top receiver of new permits was Antero Resources, with 6 permits issued in Tyler County, WV. EQT (Rice Drilling) was second-highest, with 4 permits issued in Greene County, PA.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e. Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
Yesterday MDN told you about a new assault on the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania coming from the Chairman of the House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, anti-fossil fuel zealot Greg Vitali, who (along with 13 other leftists) introduced House Bill (HB) 962, aimed at raising the bonding rates for drilling new conventional wells in the state (see 
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), which treats the 17 counties in Pennsylvania under its jurisdiction as a fiefdom, has colluded with the leftists of the Big Green group Damascus Citizens for Sustainability to “settle” a lawsuit brought by the group against DRBC “forcing” the DRBC to further restrict and ban wastewater from conventional wells from being spread on roadways (dirt roads) in the 17 PA counties located behind the Iron Curtain of the DRBC.
Last summer Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 2644 was passed into law, becoming Act 96 of 2022 (see 
You’ve gotta give Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw credit–he sure knows how to get under the skin of the wackadoodle left! Yaw is the Majority Chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. His committee oversees (among other things) the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is the state agency that oversees energy industries, including shale drilling. Yesterday Yaw tweaked the left by announcing he will soon introduce a bill to remove the word “Protection” from the DEP’s name, and replace it with…
Air monitors at Shell’s ethane cracker plant detected elevated levels of benzene (which can cause cancer in humans) following an April 11 malfunction. However, an industrial hygienist told attendees at Tuesday night’s webinar session with local residents that the levels of benzene detected at the cracker’s community-adjacent fenceline during and after the release were too low to cause “even transient discomfort or irritation.” The highest concentrations found outside the fenceline were “in the parts per billion range.”
On December 5, 2019, the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ (see 
Last night, Shell hosted a virtual community meeting to address air monitoring and recent problems experienced at the company’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. Executives answered questions about the plant’s environmental record over the past six months, including a recent odor event earlier this month (see 
Yesterday Range Resources Corporation issued its first quarter 2023 update and held a conference call with analysts. On the call, retiring (as of May 10th) CEO Jeff Ventura proclaimed Range sits at the best spot it’s been in history. Ventura said, “For the Marcellus, the future is very bright.” Incoming CEO (currently COO) Dennis Degner echoed Ventura’s remarks and pledged to “stay the course” and continue to “block and tackle” in the months and years ahead.
S&P Global Commodity Insights reports that natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica has fallen this month, in April, by some 400 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) from the average production seen during the first quarter. The most notable declines are in eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania. Why is production down? Falling demand (from mild weather) and high rates of storage (extra supply) are crashing the spot price for natural gas traded at the region’s defacto benchmark trading hub–Eastern Gas South.
Last November, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see