Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Carbon Capture | Hydrogen | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA
PA Gov. Shapiro Signs Carbon Capture Bill into Law – Now Act 87
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 PA Legislature Rejects Radical Antis, Passes CCS Bill, Sends to Gov). Having failed with Democrat legislators, the radicals hung their hopes on convincing Gov. Shapiro to veto the bill. That didn’t happen either. He signed SB 831 into law on Wednesday. It’s now officially known as Act 87.
Read More “PA Gov. Shapiro Signs Carbon Capture Bill into Law – Now Act 87”
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.
Permitting in Pennsylvania overseen by the Dept. 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 to eight months for approval — instead of the law-mandated 14 days. It got so bad that in the fall of 2019, PA State Sen. Gene Yaw introduced a bill to allow third-party reviews of these permits to speed up approvals (see 
Pennsylvania Democrat leftists face a conundrum. Do they listen to one set of environmentalist wackos, including the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Nature Conservancy, and Clean Air Task Force? Or do they listen to a different set (on the same ideological side of the aisle), including Better Path Coalition, 350 Pittsburgh, 412 Justice, the Center for Coalfield Justice, and the Clean Air Council? Two weeks ago, the first set of wackos threw their support behind PA Senate Bill (SB) 831, the Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS) Act (see 
As we mentioned in a companion post today, the Williams Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project recently received permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin operations for another segment of the REAE project, flowing an extra 130 MMcf/d of natural gas to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland (see FERC OKs Request to Place More of Regional Energy Access Online). However, yesterday, Williams suffered a minor legal setback related to the REAE project.
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count had been in a pattern of free-falling for over a month. Last week, the national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count finally reversed course and added four rigs — now at 585. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the fifth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs.
Pennsylvania’s Democrat Party is hellbent on driving the Marcellus Shale industry out of the state. They have been for years. That’s just a truthful observation and beyond dispute. One year ago, the Dems in the PA House passed a resolution by a single vote that directs the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) to “study” Pennsylvania’s revenue from the oil and gas industry, comparing it with the top five states for natural gas production in the U.S. (see 
Last week, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) is now distributing money raised by the shale impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) from 2023 to municipalities and government agencies (see