SRBC Approved 40 Shale Gas Well Pad Water Use Permits in August
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the September 20 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC approved and/or renewed 40 general water use permits in August for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Centre, Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. Read More “SRBC Approved 40 Shale Gas Well Pad Water Use Permits in August”

For the week of September 8 – 14, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica increased from the previous week. There were 26 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, more than doubling the 11 issued two weeks ago. For the second week in a row, Pennsylvania’s permit take was pathetic. PA issued just two new permits last week, after issuing three two weeks ago. Expand Energy received one permit in Bradford County, and Coterra Energy received the other permit in Susquehanna County (both counties in northeastern PA).
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC also tells shale drillers when to stop withdrawing if low water flow (i.e., drought) conditions exist. And that’s what the SRBC did earlier today. The agency, via its Hydrologic Conditions Monitor, warned shale drillers that, at 47 listed locations (all in Pennsylvania), they must stop water withdrawals until streamflow reaches a specific “trigger flow” target (different for each location).
Coterra Energy, formed by the merger of Cabot Oil & Gas (drills for natural gas in the Marcellus) and Cimarex Energy (drills for oil in the Permian and Anadarko basins), issued its second quarter 2025 update yesterday. Two things stood out for us: (1) A group of Dimock wells that came online in December are superstar performers, and (2) while resurrecting the Constitution Pipeline project is “top of mind” for the company, that project is taking a back seat to another Williams pipeline project right now.
Leatherstocking Gas Company, a subsidiary of Corning Energy Corporation, runs gas mains to residents and businesses in small, mainly rural communities in northeastern Pennsylvania (see 
Here we go again. We can see the headlines now: Dimock II…Paging Josh Fox!…Shale Drilling Contaminates Water Wells, Again. Coterra Energy is responsible for methane migrating more than a mile away to 13 “water supplies” (wells?) located around a nearby lake, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The offending nine wells sit on the Housel R Well Pad 1 in Susquehanna County’s Lenox Township. Coincidentally, Lenox Township is not all that far from Dimock Township.
In late 2022, MDN told you that Canadian-based Enerplus, with sizable non-operated assets in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, had sold certain Canadian assets so it could concentrate most of its activity on drilling in the North Dakota Bakken (see 

Coterra Energy CEO Tom Jorden had a sit-down interview at the 2025 J.P. Morgan Energy, Power, Renewables and Mining Conference on Tuesday of this week. Coterra is the successor company of Cabot Oil & Gas after Cabot merged with Cimarex Energy in October 2021 (see