Shell Cracker Wastewater Discharge Becomes an Issue
Environmentalists are accusing Shell of using a loophole to discharge wastewater at their future ethane cracker that will exceed state limits for TDS (total dissolved solids). The issue may sound familiar. In 2011 Pennsylvania “requested” that municipal sewage treatment plants without specially outfitted equipment stop accepting and processing Marcellus wastewater (see PA DEP, Marcellus Shale Coalition Admit Drilling Wastewater Likely Contaminating Drinking Water). Almost immediately, it stopped, which was a good thing for the environment. The problem with shale wastewater (i.e. produced water) is its high TDS content, including bromide. When bromide combines with chlorine used in wastewater treatment plants, it combines to produce trihalomethanes, which (in some studies) indicate increased levels of cancer in humans (see MDN In-depth: Marcellus Wastewater Discharges via Municipal Sewage Treatment Plants into PA Waterways). Nasty stuff. While the Shell ethane cracker will not process shale wastewater, it will produce water with TDS as part of its process. Shell plans to use a permit from the plant it is replacing, an old zinc smelting plant, to discharge a certain volume of water with TDS. Environmentalists say the volume they will discharge is too much and if the plant were not using a pre-existing permit (swapping ethane cracking for zinc smelting) the volume of wastewater they want to discharge would not be approved. That is, Shell is leveraging a loophole, a permit grandfathered in, and the volume of wastewater it will discharge may endanger humans downriver. Legit? Not legit?…
Read More “Shell Cracker Wastewater Discharge Becomes an Issue”
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) will go on a “listening tour” early next year, to focus on so-called environmental justice–whatever that is. Apparently environmental justice means asking poor people if they’ve been abused by the oil and gas industry in any way–and if they have a beef, the DEP will “do” something about it. That’s our take. This isn’t the first “listening tour” conducted by the DEP. You may recall in 2013 the agency conducted a listening tour for new drilling regulations (see 
From the beginning of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s disastrous administration, we have told you the unvarnished truth: Wolf’s call for a high tax on Marcellus Shale gas production is a giveaway, a pay-back, to teachers unions for their support of him in defeating Republican Gov. Tom Corbett (see 
You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
The GoMarcellusShale Forum where landowners and others interested in shale drilling hang out and swap messages back and forth was recently updated to become 
In June 2015, a full year ahead of Shell’s final investment decision (FID) to build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant complex in Beaver County, PA, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection issued the project air quality permits–which was a “critical” requirement for Shell before making their decision (see 
On Oct. 8, after five years in the making, Pennsylvania adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
We’ve seen signs of increased drilling in the Marcellus/Utica. Just look at the Baker Hughes rig counts month by month. Ever so gradually, the number of rigs operating in our region is creeping back up. The smart analysts at 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is using an unspecified amount of grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund a Penn State pilot project that combines a natural gas-fired electric plant with solar cell and battery energy storage systems in a hybrid system to power several office buildings, a sewage pump station and several Penn State training center facilities. The hope is to prove developing “microgrids” like this one can lead to a “low-carbon footprint.” Hey, at least they wised up and are using Marcellus natural gas (a hated fossil fuel) as part of their “low carbon” research. Here’s the details on the latest big money project, using taxpayer dollars, under way at Penn State…
EQT is feeling bullish about natural gas drilling in the northeast for 2017. The company has just released its 2017 operational forecast. What do we notice? First off, they plan to spend $1.5 billion next year, most of which ($1.3 billion) will be used to drill and complete new wells. That’s a whopping 50% increase from spending $1 billion this year. The next thing we notice is what type of wells they intend to drill: 119 Marcellus wells (76 in PA and 43 in WV); 81 Upper Devonian wells, which will be drilled on the same pads as deeper Marcellus wells, but only in PA; and 7 “deep Utica” exploratory wells. EQT also reworked a midstream deal with Williams in the Ohio Valley. Below are the exciting details of what’s ahead for EQT in 2017, including a second announcement from EQT Midstream about what’s ahead for the pipeline subsidiary, including details on how much they plan to spend on the Mountain Valley pipeline project in the coming year…
One of the many companies in the Marcellus industry targeted by Pennsylvania’s former Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, for extinction was Minuteman Environmental Services, a PA company that served the shale industry with several different businesses (see 
FirstEnergy, based in Akron, OH, is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. FirstEnergy owns a variety of regulated and non-regulated power generation plants. In November the company announced it wants to sell six power generating plants in PA, four of them natural gas-fired plants (see 
As we do each year, we take great pleasure and pride to let you know that Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center (SGICC) has launched yet another Shale Gas Innovation Contest. In fact, this is the 6th annual such contest. The Shale Gas Innovation Contest awards a $20,000 prize to three companies ($60,000 purse) for the “best shale energy-oriented innovations, new product ideas, or service concepts that are either in the development stage or recently launched.” Here’s the details on who your company can participate…
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites. The onerous new regulations, not in effect yet (to be published “soon”) are prompted by bullying from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, an agency which is about to get gutted (see 