Marcellus/Utica-Powered Data Center Proposed for Morgantown, WV
Just coming to light for us now is an application to build a “data center” in Morgantown, WV. The application was filed last August, but the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality held a hearing yesterday to accept public input on the facility. Marion Energy Partners wants to build the facility, yet its purpose is shrouded in mystery. The best guess is that this is another new cryptocurrency (bitcoin) mining operation. Our interest is that it will use four natural gas-fired turbines to generate the huge amounts of electricity needed to operate it–natural gas that will come from the Marcellus/Utica.
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West Virginia House of Delegates member Lisa Zukoff (Democrat from Marshall County) is making a bold claim: Some out-of-state property owners aren’t paying taxes on oil and gas royalties, and it is costing the state millions of dollars in lost revenue. Zukoff is (once again) introducing a bill in the annual two-month session of the state legislature that requires gas and oil companies to subtract any taxes from the royalty check before it is sent to the property owner.
Last week 24 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania had the lion’s share with 19 new permits–most of those (10) were issued for two Chesapeake Energy well pads in Bradford County in the northeastern part of the state. Ohio had just two new permits, both on the same Southwestern Energy well pad in Monroe County. West Virginia had three new permits, one in Pleasants County and two in Marshall County.
Our friends at NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) are running an excellent series providing expert forecasts for the global natural gas and oil markets in 2022. The latest installment interviews several experts about the prospects for the Marcellus/Utica. With the Shell ethane cracker plant coming online sometime this year, the prospects for NGL sales in the M-U have picked up. Also in the discussion: capping Pennsylvania’s orphaned wells, drilling in the Wayne National Forest, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline coming online.
There is a clear delineation in the U.S. Constitution that says anything not specifically enumerated in the Constitution is left up to the individual states to govern and regulate. Leftists have for years tried to chip away, and under Joe Biden dynamite away, that distinction. Especially with regard to nationalizing the regulation of oil and gas drilling. The left’s favorite tool to regulate O&G is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is charged with regulating and enforcing various laws including the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and federal Clean Water Act (CWA). In a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next month, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the “potential ramifications” are “profound” according to anyone and everyone paying attention.
The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see 
Since early 2015 (seven years ago!) we’ve been tracking stories about various proposals to build Marcellus gas-fired power plants in the Mountain State (see 
In December a jury in Ritchie County, WV awarded the county’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) nearly $1 million in damages in a trespassing case. The case is complicated, but at its heart is the issue of a Marcellus-focused company, Ronald Lane Inc., and land Lane deeded to the local EDA. A lawsuit against Lane alleged the company leased the deeded land for “oil and gas purposes” (to Columbia Gas as a heavy equipment storage facility) and that Lane never told the EDA about the lease nor shared the profits received from that lease.
Some really good (and expected) news to report. The West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) issued a key permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to finish work crossing rivers and streams in the Mountain State. MVP, a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia into southern Virginia, is currently 94% built and in the ground. There are several portions left to complete it, including crossing rivers and streams in both Virginia and West Virginia. The permits needed to do so come from three sources: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Virginia Water Control Board, and WV DEP.
It was one year ago that West Virginia’s two oil and gas trade associations, the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia (IOGAWV) and the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) merged into one new organization called the Gas and Oil Association of WV, or GO-WV (see 