Permits to Drill New Shale Wells in PA Hit 13-Year Low in November
As you know, MDN monitors new shale permits in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia by bringing you the weekly new permits issued report, typically on Wednesdays (see our permits archive here). Every now and again the number crunchers at S&P Global step back and look at longer periods of time, comparing stats from a given month from year to year. The crunchers have just issued a somewhat depressing analysis that says Pennsylvania’s new shale permits issued for November 2021 were the lowest number of permits issued in the month of November stretching back to 2008–some 13 years ago.
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In August of this year, co-CEO of Energy Transfer, Tom Long, said “the final phase of the Mariner East Pipeline is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2021” (see 
Hart Energy’s DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event was held this week in Pittsburgh, wrapping up this morning. Unfortunately, MDN could not attend the event this year. Some major news is coming from the event. One of the headline speakers from yesterday was CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis who said he thinks it’s high time to seriously look at revising the now-ten-year-old impact fee that drillers pay (PA’s equivalent of a severance tax), a fee created as part of the Act 13 law. What would Nick change about the impact fee/tax?
Back in October Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for the Democrat nomination for governor in 2022, told trade union workers he didn’t like current Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a huge tax on carbon dioxide assessed on coal and gas-fired power plants (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), lapdog of leftwing Gov. Tom Wolf, tried to bypass the state legislature and secretly push through and get adopted a proposed regulation on the state joining the highly controversial Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state compact to limit carbon emissions from power plant operators (a carbon tax). The DEP just got caught red-handed.
So many lawsuits and appeals of actions have been filed against the Mariner East pipeline system (being built by Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Sunoco Logistics) we’ve lost count. Dozens? Hundreds? Who knows! We try to highlight some of them–the more important ones that have the potential to slow or stop work on the 99% done system. Here’s one not even on our radar that got completely dismissed last week: Wilmer Baker and Rolfe Blume vs. Sunoco Pipeline L.P.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Monthly Electric Generator Inventory, between 2022 and 2025 (the next three years) some 27.3 gigawatts (GW) of new natural gas-fired capacity is scheduled to come online in the United States. Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania–states with pipeline access to natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays–account for a combined 43% of the natural gas-fired capacity planned to come online. Yes, our molecules will feed almost half of all new gas-fired power plants!
Is the glass half empty, or half full? Last Friday MDN told you that the Pennsylvania State Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued a list of 14 new requirements for the Mariner East Pipeline projects, for all three pipelines–ME1, ME2, and ME2X (see 
Double or nothing? More like double “or else.” In July we told you that Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline in southwestern Pennsylvania was fined an additional $1 million by the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) on top of previous fines totaling over $30 million because of an explosion (an accident) when the pipeline first went into service (see 
Anti-drilling zealots have hounded the Mariner East (ME) pipeline project from its beginning, attempting to block the completion of the third and final pipeline (ME2X), due to be done by the end of this year. One of the ways the zealots have attacked is via repeated charges brought to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), the agency that oversees and regulates the intrastate ME system. In addition to unloading on Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline system yesterday (see today’s lead story), the PUC also issued an order yesterday with some 14 actions (we call them todos) that ET must complete with regard to finishing construction of the ME system. Some of the todos deal with the ongoing operation of the ME system.
Yesterday MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a division of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has accepted the petitions of rabid anti-drilling zealots aimed at boosting bonds to drill new conventional and unconventional (shale) wells (see