Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Sep 21-25
An unusual situation for permits to drill new wells for last week. Pennsylvania only had 5 new permits while West Virginia had 12 new permits. It’s typically the other way around. Could this be the beginning of the effects from PA raising the permit fee from $5,000 to $12,500 per well? Maybe! Ohio had no new Utica permits issued last week. Drilling seems to have slowed in the Buckeye State.
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We don’t often see news about a Marcellus producer called Alta Resources. Alta was one of the first drillers we wrote about just after launching the MDN website back in 2009 (see
A relatively short pipeline project to flow water from the Susquehanna River in Tunkhannock (Wyoming County), PA to a water impoundment about seven miles away, began construction in February 2019 (see 
UGI Energy Services, the pipeline subsidiary of UGI Corporation (utility company) has just completed the fourth expansion of their northeastern PA pipeline gathering system called the Auburn Gathering System. In May 2018 MDN told you about UGI’s plans to add another two compressor stations and more gathering pipelines to benefit Cabot Oil & Gas (see
This is one of those “feel good” stories. Going back to 2012, a number of officials in Wyoming County and the borough of Tunkhannock began to dream about connecting the borough to locally extracted Marcellus Shale gas. Among those who helped turn the dream into reality were Williams (the pipeline company) and Cabot Oil & Gas (shale driller). Thanks to the efforts of all involved, Tunkhannock eventually received state-backed funding to build “phase one” of the project (see
We received some pictures from a loyal MDN subscriber (S.B.) showing progress on clearing a site where a new $5 million office and warehouse facility in Tunkhannock Township (Wyoming County), PA. Ever hear of BKV Operating? No? How about Kalnin Ventures? Or if not Kalnin, how about Banpu, the largest coal producer in Thailand? Like a Russian matryoshka (nesting) doll, BKV Operating is a subsidiary of Kalnin Ventures, and Kalnin is the American agent/partner representing Banpu here in the U.S. Ultimately it is Banpu money that is building this new facility, and major Banpu money being invested in PA Marcellus drilling in northeastern PA.
Williams is planning to build two new compressor stations in eastern Pennsylvania as part of its Leidy South Project (see
There are plenty of jobs in the shale industry in northeastern Pennsylvania–IF you have certain skills. What kind of skills? The kind that are taught at programs like at the Lackawanna College School of Petroleum and Natural Gas (PNG) in their two-year program. Or skills you can pick up at the Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center.
Another $3 million in taxpayer-funded grants have just been handed out to three different local pipeline projects under Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program, or PIPE. Two of the projects are in northeastern PA, and the other in the Lehigh Valley area.
Williams is in the process of conducting open houses for a series of compressor station projects part of it’s recently announced Leidy South Project. The project will expand capacity along the Transco Pipeline system, including the newly minted Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline portion of Transco, adding another 582 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of capacity to the Transco in northeast PA.
Coincidentally on the topic of royalty lawsuits (see today’s companion story,