Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Gained 3 Rigs, M-U Keeps a Combined 37
We continue to eek out progress with the rig report. Last week, the national rig count added three rigs after adding two the prior week and one three weeks ago. We’ve added rigs for three weeks in a row! We ended last week with 542 active rigs across the country. The Utica Shale in Ohio added one rig two weeks ago and kept it last week. The combined count was 37 for two weeks running. PA operated 18 active rigs last week. OH operated 12 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 13 rigs targeted the Utica last week. Read More “Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Gained 3 Rigs, M-U Keeps a Combined 37”

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).
In April, MDN told you of a proposal by Fundamental Data for the “Ridgeline Facility,” a large natural gas power plant and data center that will be built between Davis and Thomas, WV (see
In April 2023, MDN told you about the Adams Fork Energy project, a multi-billion-dollar clean ammonia production facility planned for Mingo County, WV (see
Patrick Morrisey served as the 34th attorney general of West Virginia from 2013 to 2025. Last November, he was elected as the state’s 37th governor, assuming office in January. Morrisey has been an unabashed champion for fossil fuels since taking office. He’s a visionary, charting out the future of the state’s economy. Gov. Morrisey cast a vision for the future of the state earlier this month at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting and Business Summit (see
It took eight years and untold legal fees (on both sides) before a tiny 3.4-mile, 8-inch natural gas pipeline under the Potomac River was finally built and went online in July (see
There is a disagreement brewing between those who operate the PJM Interconnection power grid and Big Tech, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others, regarding the issue of adding data centers to the PJM grid. PJM recently proposed a fast-track stakeholder process to develop rules by the end of the year for interconnecting data centers to its system while ensuring the region has enough power supplies. The proposal would treat new data centers over 50 megawatts (MW) as “non-capacity-backed load” (or NCBL). Under the proposal, PJM could curtail (reduce or cut off) power deliveries to data centers with NCBL status before the grid operator moves to pre-emergency load curtailments for other electricity users. Big Tech doesn’t like it one little bit. 

Two weeks ago, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count resumed a downward trend, which continued last week. The count lost another two rigs to end the week at 536. The count has been down (bleeding) 16 of the last 18 weeks. Fortunately, the Marcellus/Utica count has remained constant for the past six weeks, at a combined 36 active rigs. PA operated 18 active rigs. OH ran 11 rigs. And WV operated 7 rigs. Twenty-four rigs targeted the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeted the Utica last week. The overall downward trend in the national count is due to a slowdown in oil-focused drilling, although last week’s figures reversed this trend. Baker Hughes said oil rigs rose by one to 412 last week, while gas rigs fell by three to 119.
New life is being breathed into old, shuttered coal-fired power plants. That’s the focus of an article appearing on the Fortune magazine website. The poster child for converting old coal-fired plants is none other than the former Homer City Generating Station in Indiana County, PA. It will be transformed into a more than 3,200-acre natural gas-powered data center campus, designed to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). The new gas-fired plant in Homer City will be THE LARGEST gas-fired power plant in the country, capable of producing up to 4.5 gigawatts (4,500 MW) of electricity (see