39 New Shale Well Permits Reported for PA-OH-WV Aug 24 – 30
The Marcellus/Utica region received 39 new drilling permits last week, August 24 – 30, up significantly from the 19 permits issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania finally bounced back, issuing the vast majority of the new permits, with 25. Ohio issued 8 permits. And West Virginia issued 6 new permits. The drillers who received new permits were: Antero Resources, Campbell Oil & Gas, CNX Resources, EOG Resources, EQT, Expand Energy, Infinity Natural Resources, PennEnergy Resources, and Repsol Oil & Gas. Read More “39 New Shale Well Permits Reported for PA-OH-WV Aug 24 – 30”

Anti-drilling group Protect PT has opened a new front against the biggest gas-fired AI project in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. On Aug. 25, Protect PT and two Upper Burrell residents — Allen Uhler and Guy Fuller — filed a land use appeal in Westmoreland County Court challenging the township supervisors’ approval of TECfusions’ work at the former Alcoa/Arconic research campus. Notably, the appeal doesn’t attack the gas turbines or the Marcellus wells feeding them. It attacks a piece of paper. Or rather, the absence of one.
Nineteen months after TECfusions bought the old Alcoa research campus in Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County), PA, and promised to build 3 gigawatts of gas-fired AI computing capacity, the company announced yesterday that the site is live and delivering GPU capacity to a paying customer. It’s a small first bite of a very large apple—but it’s real, it’s running on gas turbines today, and it sits on top of Marcellus wells the company already owns.
Despite claims by anti-fossil-fuelers that the Tenaska Westmoreland Generating Station in southwestern PA would spread disease and death if it were built, it’s been up and running since 2018, producing power and generating revenue for both its builders and the community. Oh, and everyone is in good health. However, the plant has been operating under a state permit since it opened. It needs a federal Title V permit for long-term operation. The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issues such a permit. Good news! The DEP recently issued the Title V permit for this power plant.
An important (precedential) court ruling to alert Pennsylvania surface (and mineral rights) owners to. The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled earlier this month that an oil-and-gas mineral rights owner does not have an automatic, unrestricted right to place a well on a separately owned surface estate. When the deed or lease contains no express surface-access right, the mineral owner must establish that using that surface is “strictly necessary”—not merely reasonable—to reach and develop the underlying oil and gas. The case in question concerns land in Westmoreland County but will almost certainly apply to other locations as well.
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company (Warren Buffett’s company), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2025 (see
On April 29, 2026, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued six violations to CNX Resources for causing water supply problems affecting two Bell Township residences in Westmoreland County. The violations targeted three CNX facilities with 19 shale gas wells drilled between 2022 and 2026. DEP determined that CNX operations diminished water supplies after two homeowners filed complaints in December 2025 about loss of well water. CNX was ordered to provide temporary water within 24 hours and submit restoration plans within 15-45 days. CNX, which *did* offer temporary water back in December, is disputing the DEP’s findings, denying responsibility and claiming insufficient evidence of hydrogeologic pathways linking their operations to water impacts. 
A decision issued by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has helped to rein in attempted lawfare (the abuse of our judicial system) by an anti-fossil fuel group in southwestern PA. Protect PT, a group we’ve covered many times in the past, tried to assert “standing” (the right to sue) in a case involving an EQT well pad that needed to be moved by 178 feet from its original location. The local zoning board was happy to give the antis “standing” in their hearings, but when Protect PT didn’t like the board’s decision, they tried to appeal it to a court. The trial court told Protect PT the group didn’t have standing under the very specific requirements of the law.
Southwestern Pennsylvania voters chose poorly when they elected a Communist radical as their representative to the U.S. Congress: Democrat Summer Lee. She and two other far far far far far left radicals, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (Democrat from Michigan), and Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (Democrat from Arizona), together just launched what they euphemistically call the People’s Environmental Justice Caucus in Congress. A better name is the “oil and gas is racist” caucus, an attempt to smear the oil and gas industry with the label of racism, claiming that O&G projects only get built in communities of color or where the residents are poor—people who (says Lee & co.) can’t fight back against the industry.
Upper Burrell residents (Westmoreland County, PA) recently received notifications from consulting firm Verdanterra regarding upcoming surveying for natural gas lateral wells. These horizontal wells will be drilled from EQT’s Hermes well pad in neighboring Murrysville (also in Westmoreland County), following EQT’s recent acquisition of Olympus Energy. While Township Supervisor Chairman Ross Walker described the process as a standard, “innocuous” procedure conducted by foot without land disturbance, the project highlights the increasing length of well laterals in the Appalachian region.