PA PUC Distributes $200M from Impact Tax, Down $52M from Prev Yr
Each June the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), the agency charged with keeping tabs on impact fee revenue from shale drillers (PA’s version of a severance tax) releases the final numbers for impact fee revenues and disbursements for the prior calendar year. Yesterday was the appointed day for 2019 fee revenue generated. The PUC reports impact fees on natural gas producers in 2019 totaled $200,364,500, down roughly $52 million from $251,830,900 generated in 2018. With this year’s distribution, over the past nine years, PA has collected and distributed over $1.9 billion to communities across Pennsylvania–a massive amount!
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We previously told you that Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, a long-time champion for the Marcellus Shale industry, would leave office as of Monday (see 
The door has been closed on “Dimock” (in Susquehanna County, PA) for years. Dimock, you may recall, was made famous by Josh Fox’s so-called documentaries Gasland and Gasland 2, aired endlessly on HBO. His allegations about fracking malfeasance by Cabot Oil & Gas were completely debunked in a real documentary called 
A group of leftwing radical professors (all of the Democrats) from seven universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania have colluded to write a letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The letter trash talks the billions of dollars in economic impact and tens of thousands of jobs ethane cracker plants and the petrochemical industry will have in the region. The leftist gang of seven poo-poos those estimates and says the proposed PTT cracker is too “risky” to approve. How do they figure?
CNX Resources, one of our favorite Marcellus/Utica drillers, issued an operational update yesterday with some interesting new information. Chief among the tidbits is the fact that CNX, beginning May 1, shut-in some of its production. Specifically around 375 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). The company expects that number to decline to 300 MMcf/d by July. After that, they’ll play it by ear.
Enverus (formerly known as Drillinginfo) recently released its latest FundamentalEdge report that explores the ongoing supply response to demand destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the report, Enverus estimates how much dry gas production each major shale play produced, month by month, from January through May of this year. The numbers show that production from the Marcellus/Utica, which produces the most natural gas of any play, decreased the most of any play–by some 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) from January to May.
Going back a year (beginning June 2019) MDN has brought you news about Edge Gathering Virtual Pipelines 2 LLC (EDGE), a company that deploys special LNG units to remote Marcellus wells in PA, converting gas from the well into LNG and selling that gas (
The Pennsylvania legislature has taken the next step in overturning a naked power-grab by Gov. Tom Wolf in his bid to force the state to join a carbon tax scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Yesterday the PA House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee approved House Bill (HB) 2025 aimed at blocking RGGI without a proper vote by the legislature first. HB 2025 now goes to the full House for a vote.
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), the quasi-governmental agency tasked with overseeing water usage within the Susquehanna River Basin, has been a huge success with respect to partnering with the Marcellus Shale drilling industry. The SRBC recently updated a report (summary below) reviewing shale water usage drawn from the basin from 2008 to 2018. The report finds shale water usage has risen to become the #3 source of water used in the river basin–although shale usage of basin water is still a small fraction of that by larger users, including municipalities and electric power generation.
EnergyNet is an online marketplace for buying and selling oil and gas working interests (operated and non-operated), overrides, royalties, mineral interests, leaseholds, and other contracts. From time to time we spot auctions on EnergyNet from Marcellus/Utica drillers. EnerVest Energy is currently auctioning a package of leases scattered across Ohio and Pennsylvania via the EnergyNet website. The EnerVest auction ends June 17. We have the details below.
Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai has been a long-time supporter of the Marcellus Shale industry in the Keystone State. He’s not only an “advocate” for shale energy, he’s devastatingly effective against the shenanigans of anti-fossil fuelers from the Democrat Party. And they hate him for it. Although Turzai previously announced he won’t run for reelection (see 
An economist from Binghamton University who has zero training in health care and the medical field is the lead author of a new study that claims air pollution from Marcellus fracking killed an estimated 20 people in Pennsylvania from 2010-2017. While the “study” aims to paint Marcellus fracking as a killer, we say it makes the opposite point. This study (if you believe its results) proves Marcellus fracking is about the safest form of energy on earth!
On Wednesday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging whether or not the state Attorney General’s office has the right to use a consumer protection law to prosecute companies like Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko over royalty payment shenanigans. The law the AG’s office wants to use has never been used that way before. According to legal experts, drillers are very concerned if the AG’s office wins this one, as we reported last November (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 790, a bill that restores sanity to regulations for conventional oil and gas drillers in the Keystone State. For years PA’s small, independent conventional oil and gas drillers have objected to the one-size-fits-all regulations concocted by the Gov. Tom Wolf Administration that applies the same regulations to them as to big shale drillers. The two types of drilling are apples and oranges. To make small conventional drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will bankrupt many of the smaller companies. SB 790 helps correct the situation.