21 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jun 30 – Jul 6
For the week of June 30 – July 6, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica decreased from the previous week, likely due to the July 4th holiday. There were 21 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, down six from 27 issued two weeks ago. The Keystone State (PA) issued 13 new permits. EQT and its recently acquired Olympus Energy received a combined five permits scattered across three counties: Allegheny, Greene, and Washington. Snyder Brothers received four permits in Armstrong County. BKV scored three permits in Wyoming County. Range Resources received a single permit in Washington County. Read More “21 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jun 30 – Jul 6”

Well, you knew this was coming. Radicalized green groups are gearing up to challenge two recently resurrected Williams pipeline projects: The Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile, 660 MMcf/d greenfield (brand new) pipeline from the gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Susquehanna County) into and through New York to Schoharie County; and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project, designed to increase Transco pipeline capacity and flows of Marcellus gas heading into New York City and other northeastern markets.
We still marvel, to this day, at how Tallgrass Energy Partners turned what looked like a financial disaster into an economic bonanza. Tallgrass built the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline, which stretches from Colorado and Wyoming to Ohio, just in time for the shale revolution to take hold. Whoops! Talk about bad timing! A significant portion of REX, its Zone 3 pipeline from Missouri to Ohio, was in danger of drying up in 2012 due to the increase in Marcellus/Utica gas production (see
Yesterday, MDN informed you that CNX Resources is still considering (but not yet 100% committed) to a plan to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) using coalbed methane (see
Another day, another gas-fired power plant has been sold. It’s becoming a routine thing. Yesterday, ArcLight Capital Partners announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire 100% of the economic interests in Middletown Energy Center, a 484 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant located in Butler County, Ohio. We wrote about the original plan to build the Middletown plant back in 2014 (see
MDN is a blog/news site primarily focused on the Marcellus/Utica shale and related issues. Sometimes, conventional (non-shale) drilling is a related issue. Today, we have an article that discusses the fact that new conventional drilling still happens in some places in Pennsylvania—in this case, in the City of Warren (Warren County). The president of Bull Run Resources LLC gave a presentation to and took questions from the Warren City Council yesterday. The information he discussed was interesting, as it compared and contrasted conventional drilling with shale drilling. Do you know the differences? And did you know that conventional wells are sometimes drilled at an angle?
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New York has got to face reality – we need natural gas; NATIONAL: TC Energy is bolstering America’s energy dominance through critical investments; Geothermal energy may be poised for growth thanks to shale drilling advances; Why is every natural disaster being politicized?; How AI and technology are reshaping the oil and gas workforce; Drilling plummets under Trump despite ‘drill, baby, drill’ promise; INTERNATIONAL: Oil teeters as tariffs and output risks unbalance market; Chevron shifts from local to centralized hubs to cut costs; Fossil fuels show staying power as EU clean energy output dips.
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 April 2017, MDN brought you the news that Columbia Pipeline (owned by TransCanada) had applied with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a pipeline under the Potomac to connect natural gas from Pennsylvania to the Mountaineer Gas system in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia (see
The NYMEX “front month” futures contract for natural gas (August contract) slid lower yesterday for a second day in a row. The price dropped 12.6 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtus), or nearly 4%, to $3.214 yesterday. The price was down 19.8 cents (nearly 6%) over the past two days. According to one analyst (whom we trust), this “decisive breakdown” in natural gas puts the $3.10 support level at risk, opening the path to deeper downside targets, including $2.97 and $2.79. Yuck.
In May of 2024, CNX Resources Corp., KeyState Energy, and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) announced they were working together on a $1.5 billion project that, if completed, would make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at PIT from coalbed methane gas (see
In May, NRG Energy announced a deal to acquire LS Power’s portfolio of natural-gas power plants in a deal valued at roughly $12 billion, including debt, that will expand NRG’s footprint in Texas and along the East Coast (see
No wonder Venture Global continues to love the model of signing up customers to buy its LNG via contract (which reassures investors so they give money to build a plant), then denies those contracted customers their shipments FOR YEARS under the pretense that they are still working the kinks out at the facility (called commissioning) while at the same time selling cargoes of LNG on the open/spot market. VG is receiving 2.6 times more money for spot market cargoes compared to cargoes shipped to contracted customers. The question we can’t answer is, why do any new customers sign up, given the company’s history?
If you’ve read MDN for any length of time, you know that so-called renewable energy, wind and solar, are unreliable and really, really expensive. Most people believe renewables overcome those problems by being good for the environment. No so! Renewables are actually bad for the environment. We will explain…
Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, not to be confused with the former Chesapeake Energy Corporation (which is now Expand Energy), announced that its Ohio subsidiary, Aspire Energy Express, LLC, has entered into an agreement with American Electric Power (AEP) to construct and operate an intrastate natural gas pipeline in central Ohio to feed Marcellus/Utica gas to a new fuel-cell facility, which will provide on-site electric power to a data center. The pipeline is expected to cost approximately $10 million to construct.
Gas-fired power plants, both brand new and existing plants, are hot properties these days. We’ve covered several recent sales of existing gas-fired power plants in the Marcellus/Utica region (and beyond). Here’s another one: investment firm Strategic Value Partners, LLC (SVP) announced yesterday that it’s acquiring Red Oak Power, an 831-megawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle generation facility located in Sayreville, New Jersey.