Help Wanted: M-U Companies Recruiting, Positions Going Unfilled
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.
Read More “Help Wanted: M-U Companies Recruiting, Positions Going Unfilled”
Two days ago the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) gave a briefing and delivered a report to the PA Environmental Quality Board (EQB). Kurt Klapkowski, Director of the Bureau of Oil and Gas Planning and Program Management, said the state’s conventional oil and gas drilling companies only paid $46,100 of the $10.6 million it cost for the DEP to regulate that industry in FY 2020-21. That’s a pretty serious deficit. What is DEP suggesting as a fix?
Tilden Marcellus LLC, a Canonsburg, Pa.-based oil and gas company, filed for chapter 11 protection last Friday in the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Tilden is a “sister company” to Rockdale Marcellus. You may recall Rockdale went through bankruptcy last year, resulting in the sale of substantially all of its assets (in Pennsylvania) to Repsol for $220 million in cash (see 
Pennsylvania has already received the first $25 million payment from the so-called infrastructure bill, a down payment on what will eventually be $330.6 million (see 
According to numbers published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2020 Pennsylvania generated and sent more electricity to neighboring states than any other state in the union. More than 230 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity was generated in Pennsylvania during 2020, and nearly 78 million MWh of that electricity was delivered to neighboring states. If PA Gov. Wolf’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme is adopted, much of that electric production will disappear. PA’s neighbors should be VERY concerned.
The Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has engaged in some questionable activities in the past, but this time they’ve stepped WAY across the line. Last Thursday the PA DEP filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court to force the state to adopt the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a blatant tax on carbon dioxide produced by gas- and coal-fired power plants. Thing is, it’s illegal for the state to adopt RGGI right now while the state legislature still has a window of time to vote on overriding Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of a resolution that would have stopped RGGI. Constitutionally, legally, statutorily, the legislature has a certain number of days to attempt an override. The DEP’s Secretary Pat McDonnell, Gov. Wolf’s patsy, is trying to circumvent the law by forcing RGGI through now.
Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in “electric” fracking–using natural gas from the well pad (instead of diesel fuel) to power turbines to create electricity that drives fracking pumps. In September 2020, three former Evolution employees who worked at remote sites in the Marcellus/Utica for the company, filed a lawsuit against the company claiming Evolution failed to pay them for their commute to and from job sites. This past Tuesday a federal judge in Pennsylvania granted conditional certification for the lawsuit to become a class action.
Once again Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, is turning accidents, including an accident that caused an explosion of the newly completed 
A month ago MDN brought you the news that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, had cut a deal to buy the Stonehenge Appalachia Midstream natural gas gathering system in Butler County, PA, for $190 million (see 
Last week MDN brought you the news that Chesapeake Energy is buying Marcellus driller Chief Oil & Gas (plus associated non-operated assets from Tug Hill Operating) for $2 billion in cash and approximately 9.44 million common shares (see 
On Wednesday the Pennsylvania State Senate passed Senate Bill (SB) 806, a bill aimed at providing clarity in the royalty payment statements landowners receive from oil and gas drillers. Sometimes deductions are posted on royalty statements with very little (if any) description of what those deductions are for. SB 806 will clear up the confusion. PA Senator Gene Yaw is the prime sponsor of the bill.
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), which owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells, made 2021 the year to expand–outside the M-U region. The company purchased major assets in the Cotton Valley/Haynesville region of Lousiana, the Barnett play in Texas, and most recently, in the Mid-Continent in Oklahoma. Diversified got its start by buying up old conventional O&G wells in Appalachia. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum…Diversified has begun buying older shale wells too. The company is now the fifth-largest owner of shale wells in the southwestern PA Marcellus.