24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV May 16-22
Just last week MDN told you we will, from now on, bring you new permit data for the previous week on Fridays. Yet here it is Thursday and we’re sharing the permit data for last week. What gives? MDN and its author, Jim Willis, are taking a break Friday (tomorrow) and next Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. Well, we’re taking Monday off for the holiday. We’re taking Friday off because there’s a wedding in Jim’s family this weekend. There are preparations to make, and celebrations to partake in. So we’re bringing you the permit data today, on Thursday. Speaking of which, there were 24 new permits issued last week, with 14 of them going to Pennsylvania, seven to Ohio, and three to West Virginia. We break it down below.
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Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) is a “top 10” shale driller in West Virginia, headquartered in Morgantown, WV (see 
You have to hand it to West Virginia Joe Manchin, he doesn’t much care what the snobby intelligentsia think about him. For whatever reason Manchin is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It’s an event where all the smarter-than-you-are people go to pronounce they’re smarter than you are. According to the WEF website, “The World Economic Forum brings together decision-makers from across society to work on projects and initiatives that make a real difference.” Errr, right. Most of the attendees are fossil fuel haters, so it was with interest we read Manchin’s comments at Davos in front of the haters, sticking up for fossil energy.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
Sometimes U.S. Joe Manchin from West Virginia makes us nervous. He’s done great work in blocking Joe Biden’s radicalized agenda to destroy fossil energy by blocking the Build Back Worse program Biden and the Dems desperately wanted (saving the country from complete ruin with runaway hyperinflation). But then we read about Manchin tinkering with the idea to assess a tariff on foreign imported goods, like steel and cement, that are made in countries (like China) that don’t give a flip about environmental controls. Supposedly such a tariff would encourage those countries to use more natural gas, or encourage more American manufacturing of those goods (because our plants use clean natgas). We’re not sure what to make of Manchin’s efforts.
Diversified Energy CEO Rusty Hutson and his wife Kimberly Hutson, both natives of West Virginia, recently donated $1.8 million to West Virginia University to help fund an experiential learning program, a nursing initiative, and neuroscience care at the university. We have chronicled a number of generous donations by Marcellus/Utica companies and their foundations. However, this has to be the single largest donation by an individual connected to the industry that we’ve seen, to date.
Because of constant court challenges against pipelines, the Trump administration completed a redo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12), a general permit used in constructing pipelines, just prior to leaving office. From the beginning of the Biden administration, anti-fossil fuel fanatics have attacked NWP12, hoping they can cancel it or otherwise make it so onerous nobody will use it. In March the Army Corps caved to the pressure and announced it will review (i.e. change) NWP12 (see 
At the end of the day, Joe Manchin, U.S. Senator from West Virginia, is still a Democrat and beholden to his party’s radical leftwing. We had hoped he was a different kind of Democrat, but alas, perhaps not. Bloomberg (often a fake news source) is reporting that Manchin is reaching out to Republicans in the Senate to gauge interest in spending a half-trillion dollars ($550 billion to be exact) on “climate and energy spending”–resurrected pieces of what had been Biden’s failed Build Back Better Act. The aim is to salvage something of Joe Biden’s tattered reputation ahead of the 2022 elections in November, so Dems are not completely obliterated (as we hope they are and deserve to be) this fall. No thanks, Sen. Manchin. We’re not interested in tacking on another 4-5% to the inflation numbers that are already at historic highs, which is exactly what such a bill would do.
KeyState LLC is developing 7,000 acres of natural gas fields and geological storage in West Keating Township, Clinton County in the middle of coal and iron country in central Pennsylvania (see