PA DEP Extends Deadline to Comment on Potter Injection Well Plan
Earlier this year, Roulette Oil & Gas LLC received approval from the federal EPA to build a shale wastewater injection well in Clara Township in Potter County, PA (see EPA Approves Potter County, PA Injection Well, Waiting Now for DEP). On March 31, the Clara Town Board passed an amended version of its 1987 ordinance governing injection wells (see Clara Township Adopts Modified Ordinance Banning Injection Wells). The newly amended ordinance bans all injection wells in the township–something that is (according to our understanding) illegal under Pennsylvania state law. However, before Roulette can begin drilling, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) also needs to approve the well. The DEP held a public hearing on July 25 in Coudersport, PA.
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New shale permits issued for Jun 26 – Jul 2 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic increase, thanks to a bump in Pennsylvania’s numbers. There were 39 new permits issued last week, way up from 11 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 30 new permits in Pennsylvania, 8 new permits in Ohio, and just 1 new permit in West Virginia. Coterra Energy scored the most new permits with a whopping 12 issued in Susquehanna County, PA (for two well pads). Range Resources had the second most new permits, with 7 permits issued in Washington County, PA (for one pad).
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.
Last week MDN told you about the long-festering issue of building a shale wastewater injection well in Clara Township in Potter County, PA (see 
An issue that’s been festering for more than two years appears to be coming to a head in western Potter County, PA. In early 2021, Roulette Oil and Gas applied for a Class II Injection Well Permit to drill an injection well in Clara Township. The leftists from Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) immediately began to whisper the siren song of “home rule” into the ears of Clara’s residents (see 
The difference between the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) and the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is stark. The former is well-run and rational, the latter is disorganized and irrational. At least with respect to fracking. Over the weekend, the SRBC published a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin to announce that during the month of January, the agency approved 38 requests for daily water use on shale well pads in the SRBC’s jurisdictional territory in Pennsylvania, totaling some 233.5 million gallons. Put another way, this is a handy list of where drilling will soon happen in northeastern PA.
Gas Field Specialists, headquartered in Potter County, PA, is an oilfield services (OFS) company that works in the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania. The company also does OFS work in western New York State. According to a settlement reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Gas Field Specialists will pay a former employee (rig worker/mechanic) $184,000 after firing him because he had cancer.
S.T.L. Resources, LLC, an independent oil and gas company with headquarters outside of Pittsburgh, announced yesterday that the company has purchased the remaining assets of Tilden Marcellus for an undisclosed sum. Tilden filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February (see 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statics, the oilfield services and equipment industry grew by over 7,000 jobs in December 2021. Marcellus/Utica companies can’t find enough workers to fill all of the open positions in our region, especially in Pennsylvania. According to an article in the Wellsboro Gazette (Tioga County, northeastern part of the state), companies in Tioga and Potter counties can’t fill all of their open positions.
A third Pennsylvania township, Clara Township in Potter County, is about to be lured onto the same litigation rocks by the siren song of the uber-radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) as two other towns, by adopting an illegal “home rule” law in an attempt to block a new wastewater injection well. CELDF lured two other towns onto the same litigation rocks, where they’ve crashed–Grant Township in Indiana County and Highland Township in Elk County. Both towns were sued by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) when they tried to block injection wells using the same home rule tactic (see 
In March 2019 MDN told you about National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) FM100 Project in northwestern Pennsylvania that will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see 
For a second week in a row, all three M-U states issued new shale drilling permits last week. Pennsylvania issued 6 new permits, Ohio issued 5 new permits, and West Virginia issued 3 new permits.
By any measure, it’s obvious to see that shale *drilling* activity in northcentral Pennsylvania counties–including Bradford, Clinton, Lycoming, Potter, Sullivan, and Tioga–is on the “bust” side over the past five-plus years. 2016 was the low point. However, is there any hope of seeing another boom in shale drilling in the region?