Josh Shapiro’s Energy Shell Game is Bad for Penn. & Other States
PJM, the grid manager for Pennsylvania, twelve other states, and the District of Columbia, is worried about future energy needs. As existing power plants come offline and lawmakers seek to replace them with woefully inadequate alternatives, PJM estimates electricity shortages as early as 2027. PA Gov. Josh Shapiro isn’t helping matters with his disastrous energy proposals (see PA Gov. Shapiro Proposes Own Version of Marcellus-Killing Carbon Tax). Shapiro’s plan would *decrease* the amount of reliable natgas power, risking reliability for Pennsylvanians and neighboring states that depend on Pennsylvania electrical generation.
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Range Resources Corporation, the very first company to drill a shale well targeting the Marcellus Shale layer in Pennsylvania (in 2004), issued its second quarter 2024 update earlier this week. Range continues to hold its production relatively flat. During 2Q, Range produced 2.15 Bcfe/d (billion cubic feet equivalent per day), with approximately 69% of production comprised of natural gas and the rest in NGLs and oil. Range’s 2Q24 production is up 3% from 2Q23, but essentially flat from 1Q24 (2.14 Bcfe/d). Steady as she goes. Net income was $28.7 million, down 5% from the same quarter last year.
Yeah, well, that didn’t take long. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro (left-wing Democrat) held a rally with Biden’s EPA chief Michael Regan in Pittsburgh to tout a big old pot of money, $396 million, coming from the feds to PA to essentially buy votes (see 
According to the left-leaning Spotlight PA, “A flurry of recent bipartisan agreements by state lawmakers on energy projects and policies is sending a clear message: Pennsylvania is slowly moving toward clean energy but fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere.” Joe Biden is sending big money to Pennsylvania to fund all sorts of ludicrous “renewable” energy initiatives (i.e., bribes). However, sources talking to Spotlight PA confirm that fossil fuels — the Marcellus industry — remain strong and are not going anywhere.
Here is an incontrovertible fact: In a CNN town hall debate during the 2019 presidential primary, Kamala Harris said, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” She hasn’t changed her position in the last five years. And that’s a problem for Harris in “swing” states like Pennsylvania. She said she would ban it from “day one” on federal lands and then work her way around to private lands later. The left always uses incrementalism. There is no question that Harris is left of Joe Biden if such a thing is possible. We think it’s quite possible Harris will try to recruit PA’s dud, do-nothing Governor, Josh Shapiro, to run with her as her VP candidate to try and persuade PA voters that her radical position supporting a fracking ban shouldn’t prevent them from voting for her. Harris figures that if Shapiro is on the ticket, it will assuage voters’ concerns. Don’t fall for it. If Harris loses PA, she loses the election.
A disappointing (but not surprising) decision from the Democrat leftists on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was issued last Thursday. The so-called Supremes ruled in favor of allowing three well-financed Big Green groups, including the Sierra Club, PennFuture, and Clean Air Council, to join a lawsuit attempting to force the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) obscene carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired plants in the Keystone State. Big Green can now participate, bringing along big money and attorneys to support the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is trying to force state participation in RGGI.
Environmental radicals have struck out a second time, and they’re pretty bitter about it. We’re talking about Senate Bill (SB) 831, the Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS) Act. Last week, a strong bipartisan majority in the PA legislature ignored the radicals that had asked Democrat legislators to block the bill, passing the bill and sending it to the governor’s desk (see 
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That appears to be the philosophy of a group of radicalized “environmental” groups attempting to pressure Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to veto a new bill sitting on his desk, Senate Bill (SB) 831, the Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS) Act. Last week, a strong bipartisan majority in the PA legislature ignored the same group that had asked Democrat legislators to block the bill (see 
A MAJOR victory for Pennsylvania Republicans that is not getting the attention it should. For years, PA State Sen. Gene Yaw and others have lobbied for review by qualified third parties to speed up the turnaround time to approve relatively simple permits issued by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), including earth disturbance/erosion permits, known as Chapter 102 permits, and water obstruction and encroachment permits, known as Chapter 105 permits (see 
Over the past seven-plus years, BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American arm of Banpu (96% owned by Banpu, Thailand’s largest coal mining company), has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV originally entered the American shale sector by investing $500 million in 2016-2017 to buy existing Marcellus wells and acreage in northeast Pennsylvania. Then the company went wandering into other shale plays (see 
We’ve covered the Pennsylvania state budget negotiations and passage in years gone by when PA’s then-Gov. Tom Wolf (far-left Democrat) requested a Marcellus-killing severance tax every year he was in office (eight loooong years). We’ve largely ignored the PA budget this time around under PA’s do-nothing dud of a governor, Josh Shapiro, as his proposed budget didn’t include a severance tax proposal. The budget passed last Thursday (two weeks late). We happened to spot a comment by the Marcellus Shale Coalition offering words of praise for the budget, so that got our attention. What is in this budget the MSC likes?
Operators and investors are more concerned than ever about the remaining inventory of drillable locations. Who has it? Where is it? Will it be economic? The North American inventory rankings by shale play are always of interest. Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, recently issued a report that ranks the plays by the number of economic-to-drill locations each play has left. Unfortunately, Marcellus Shale play is on the list of “losers” in this latest report. Why? A huge jump in Bidenflation — rig day rates were up 25% year-over-year in September in the Marcellus, compared to about 15% across the other plays. Also a factor is dropping productivity in the Marcellus (“productivity degradation”), particularly in northeast PA.