Antis Humiliate Themselves by Opposing $92B of PA Investment
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat put in office by labor unions and environmental lefties, showed up at yesterday’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, organized by PA Republican Senator Dave McCormick. President Trump attended the meeting and announced that some $92 billion had been pledged by a variety of companies (all private investment) in the state of Pennsylvania for energy projects. Much of the investment revolves around data centers and natural gas-fired power plants. Some of it was for renewable energy projects and nuclear energy projects. Because it was a Republican-organized event with Trump attending, the environmental left in PA lost its collective mind—especially because Shapiro was there, too. Read More “Antis Humiliate Themselves by Opposing $92B of PA Investment”
You gotta hand it to Pennsylvania Democrats. They LOVE LOVE LOVE to tax other people’s money—especially companies and industries that they hate, like the state’s oil and gas industry. On July 8, PA State Senator Art Haywood (Democrat from Philadelphia) introduced PA Senate Bill (SB) 910, which slaps a 6.5% severance tax on the gross production of all oil and natural gas produced in the state. However, the bill goes further by repealing the provision in the 2012 Act 13 law that states that if a severance tax is ever implemented, the existing impact fee would be eliminated. In other words, Haywood’s bill eliminates the provision to end the impact fee, meaning the impact fee would remain in place. So, drillers would be taxed twice for the same thing. Fortunately, the bill is DOA in the Senate. 
The media fuss is hard to miss about today’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit being held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. PA Senator Dave McCormick organized the event. Among the attendees will be President Trump, several cabinet secretaries, and other White House officials. Much of the buzz is around $90 billion in AI and energy investments expected to be announced. In preparation for the big event, a roundtable was held yesterday at CNX headquarters in Washington County, PA, to discuss clearing away permitting obstacles and red tape to help PA realize some (if not most) of that $90 billion in investments. 
The more the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) beats the drum to say it has solved the slooooooow permitting process in the state, the more hollow it rings. It seems like every other week, the DEP issues a press release to announce it has almost cleared all of the agency’s backlog of permits. Another such pronouncement was issued yesterday. The DEP claims its permit backlog has been reduced by 98% since November 2023, decreasing the backlog from over 2,400 permit applications to fewer than 50. Good for them. 
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count has been hemorrhaging for 11 consecutive weeks. Last week, the U.S. rig count declined by another two rigs to its lowest level since October 2021, ending the week at 537 active rigs. You have to go back to the dark days of the pandemic, July 2020, for the previous 11+ consecutive weeks of decline in the rig count. The Marcellus/Utica stayed even (after falling by one two weeks ago) at a combined 35 active rigs. There were 23 rigs targeting the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeting the Utica last week. 
When referring to Big Green groups in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, we often label the groups as “colluding,” meaning they coordinate their legal and public relations attacks against fossil fuel companies. It is something we have long suspected but (unfortunately) can’t prove definitively. We had hoped Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) was about to prove it (see 
Environment-related permitting in Pennsylvania, overseen by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six months for approval, instead of the policy-mandated 14 days. The DEP announced last November that it would soon implement the SPEED (Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development) program to speed up the permit approval process (see 
The number crunchers at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analyzed proved reserves data for 2023 (the most recent year available) and determined that proved reserves of U.S. natural gas decreased 12.6% year over year, from 691.0 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to 603.6 Tcf. This was the first annual decrease in U.S. natural gas reserves since 2020. Looking at the numbers for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, natural gas proved reserves decreased by 4% (PA), 13% (OH), and 6% (WV) from 2022 to 2023. The report shows that Marcellus gas reserves dropped 5.9% in 2023. 
It’s bloody. It’s brutal. Last week, for the ninth consecutive week, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count declined (by seven rigs) to its lowest level since October 2021, ending the week at 547 active rigs. The national rig count continues in a free fall. For the fifth week in a row, the Marcellus/Utica count remained the same, at a combined 36 active rigs. The Pennsylvania Marcellus operated 18 rigs. The Ohio Utica operated 11 rigs. And West Virginia operated seven rigs. So, at least there’s some good news with respect to the M-U. 
Infinity Natural Resources (INR), headquartered in Morgantown, WV, focuses 100% on the Marcellus/Utica. The company went public earlier this year with a $265 million ($20/share) initial public offering, giving INR a $1.18 billion market capitalization (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) announced the distribution of $164,592,500 in natural gas impact fees collected from producers for the 2024 reporting year. The bad news is that the impact fee raised $15 million less than it did in 2023, the prior year. The good news is that the state Independent Fiscal Office predicts the impact fee for 2025 will soar by $70 million to roughly $235 million (see 
The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) is out with an initial estimate for how much money will be raised and distributed from the 2025 impact fee assessment. The IFO projects that impact fee revenue will increase by $70 million in 2025 compared to the revenue collected in 2024. IFO predicts revenues will hit around $235 million. The impact fee is PA’s version of a severance tax. The impact fee generated $164.6 million in 2024 and $179.6 million in 2023. 
Last week, MDN told you that EQT’s vice president of midstream, Robert Wingo, was moving on to another job (see