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26 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Nov 14-20
Last week (Nov. 14-20) saw a total of 31 new shale permits issued across the Marcellus/Utica, up slightly from 26 permits the week before. Pennsylvania received the most permits, with 26 new permits issued. Ohio received five new permits, and West Virginia got skunked with no new permits last week.
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These days we don’t often see the contract details for new leases signed by landowners to allow shale drilling. We used to see and report on large landowner coalitions and the deals they had struck back in the earlier days of the Marcellus/Utica. But today, about the only time you get any kind of insight into deal amounts comes when municipalities lease land for drilling, given that the business dealings of a municipality must be disclosed publicly. We’re always on the lookout for such deals. Allegheny Township in Westmoreland County (near Pittsburgh) has just approved a shale lease with Olympus Energy to drill under (not on) 27.7 acres of the Tredway Trail. The terms of the deal are…
Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County, PA) town supervisors held a hearing last Wednesday, and following that hearing, voted unanimously to approve a new well pad proposed by Olympus Energy. This is the fourth such well pad approved by the town. Unlike previous meetings, no one (of the 20 or so residents attending) objected to the project. The well pad is 630 feet or more from about 20 homes–which is farther than the state-required setback of 500 feet.
What if we gave the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) a $2.5 million grant to study a link between peanut butter and childhood cancer? Researchers could only use the money to study any potential link between peanut butter and kids getting rare cancers. Sounds absurd, right? What if there is NO link between peanut butter and cancer in kids? What if there IS a link to some other environmental factor like, say, an old uranium dumpsite nearby? But the remit is to ONLY research peanut butter. Sound silly? Sound stupid? Substitute “shale drilling” for “peanut butter,” and you can see how absurd it is for Pitt to study a single potential cause for rare childhood cancers in southwestern PA. Yet they are. Pitt is studying a link solely between fracking and cancer in kids. They are now trying to recruit local families to participate in this sham they call science.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently held two public hearings about a plan by the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Westmoreland County, PA (southwestern corner of the state, near Pittsburgh) to build a gas-fired leachate evaporator. Leftist anti-drillers showed up to bash the proposal citing the landfill accepts shale waste, claiming the leachate is radioactive because of the shale waste and will contaminate everything if it’s burned. DEP plans to approve the temporary operation of an evaporator for 180 days to process 45,000 gallons of leachate per day.
The same old issue keeps returning in Pennsylvania for landowners and rights owners. The Pennsylvania Minimum Royalty Act guarantees payments to all rights owners of at least 12.5% of the value of the produced gas. Yet contracts signed by many landowners allow for post-production deductions, and those deductions sometimes (often?) result in landowners receiving less than 12.5% in royalty payments. This issue has been a thorn of contention between landowners and drillers for years–two groups that are normally allies. Farmers/landowners from several western PA counties gathered yesterday at the Washington County Farm Bureau’s annual legislative meeting to discuss, among other issues, minimum royalties.
Yesterday officials from CNX Resources and the company’s CNX Foundation presented a ceremonial check for $250,000 to pay for upgrades and extensions to municipal waterlines and the installation of fire hydrants in Bell Township (Westmoreland County, PA). The money means 55 homes in the area will be able to connect to municipal water. Local residents are ecstatic. CNX is planning to build six well pads and drill 20 wells in Bell Township. The donation is the company’s way of reassuring residents CNX will be a good neighbor.