6th Circuit Reverses Lower Court, Blocks EOG from Surface Drilling
This is news of a lawsuit with implications for drillers, rights owners, and surface land owners that we were not previously aware of. EOG Resources, an oil and gas drilling giant with nearly half a million leased acres in Ohio, holds drilling rights on land owned by Lucky Land Management in Ohio—we could not determine the exact location or county. The two sides couldn’t agree on whether EOG’s rights to drill included the right to drill from Lucky Land’s surface out to adjacent properties as well. So EOG sued. EOG then asked a district court to grant a preliminary injunction, allowing the company to access the land to cut down trees and begin constructing wells. The district court did so, finding that EOG would probably succeed on the merits of the case. Read More “6th Circuit Reverses Lower Court, Blocks EOG from Surface Drilling”
Both conventional and unconventional (shale) drillers in Pennsylvania were required to submit a new annual report to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on December 10, 2023, detailing volatile organic compound (VOC) and methane emissions from their operations over the previous year. Shortly before that deadline, the DEP suspended the due date and set a new due date of June 1, 2024 (see 
Every three years, the Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required, by state law, to produce an update to the state’s so-called Climate Action Plan. The fact that they have such a plan boggles the mind—a plan to address global warming (the operative word being “global”) from one state. To be fair, many states and even large cities also have such plans. These plans are all arrogant nonsense. No entity, especially not a single state, can do a darned thing to affect the temperature of Mom Earth, but they pretend they can. And they use the existence of such plans as a manipulative political tool to force policy changes that inflict significant economic harm on their citizens, all in the name of saving the planet. The wackadoodle left has brainwashed our children into believing we’ll die if we don’t give up fossil fuel use. The DEP recently released its triennial “dump fossil fuels” update, and it’s as crazy as ever. 
For more than four years, MDN has called out the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, as nothing more than tools of Big Green. We’ve reported on many of the IEA’s perennially wrong (fake) predictions about “peak demand” for oil and natural gas (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Utica shale career day; We need to protect Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: NY net zero by 2050 is not achievable; Why Navajo activists oppose a proposed hydrogen pipeline that could be the world’s longest; Maine’s electricity prices grew at the third fastest rate in the country, analysis shows; NATIONAL: WTI ends higher but logs weekly loss; FERC chair said ready to fast-track natural gas permitting; The bright future of natural gas; US shale patch slows down as oil prices sink; Fossil fuels back in play as Amazon, Nvidia power AI ambitions. 
Last week was another strong week for new permits issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica. For the week of April 14 – 20, the number of permits was down three from the previous week, but still very strong. Last week, 33 new permits were issued in the M-U. In the Keystone State (PA), 25 new permits were issued, a dramatic increase from five two weeks ago. The top permittee was Range Resources, with 10 permits, half of which were in Allegheny County and the other half in Washington County. Seneca Resources received six permits, all of which were in Tioga County. EQT and its subsidiary Rice Drilling also scored six permits, with four in Fayette County and two in Greene County. PA General Energy got two permits in Lycoming County, and Olympus Energy received one permit in Allegheny County. 
Yesterday, CNX Resources issued its first quarter 2025 update. The company lost $198 million for the quarter, compared with a profit of $6.9 million in 1Q24. On the financial plus side, the company generated $100 million in free cash flow, marking the 21st consecutive quarter of FCF generation. Production was 147.8 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in 1Q25 — which works out to 1.64 Bcfe/d — up from 140.4 Bcfe last year (a 5.3% increase). Drilling all but stopped during 3Q24, a trend that continued in 4Q24. However, drilling picked up again in 1Q25, with the company drilling five new wells, fracking eight wells, and bringing 19 wells online to sales (called “turned-in-line” or TIL). The TILs included nine Southwest Pa. Marcellus wells, two Central Pa. deep Utica wells, and an eight-well Central Pa. Marcellus pad acquired from Apex Energy. 
Corporate welfare—the transfer of taxpayers’ money to businesses—is ugly, no matter if the money goes to large or small businesses. True to form, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Governor, Josh Shapiro, and his political operative at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), “Acting” Secretary Jessica Shirley, yesterday launched a program to try and spread nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (Biden’s Green New Scam) to businesses large and small in the Keystone State. They euphemistically call the program RISE PA (Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania). It should be called “Spread Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Votes” (STD BV). 
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has found some willing accomplices among PA House Democrats to introduce six bills to implement Shapiro’s nutty, very partisan energy plan, called the “Lightning Plan.” Shapiro claims his so-called Lightning Plan is “a comprehensive, all-of-the-above energy plan to secure Pennsylvania’s energy future.” Except his plan puts the thumb of the government on the scales in favor of wind, solar, and hydro, and purposely disadvantages natural gas. Our observation: If it takes six (or more) bills to adopt his energy plan, something is seriously wrong. 
We spotted a press release that caught our attention. Duke Energy, owner of electricity utility companies serving 8.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, has just sealed a deal with GE Vernova to buy up to 11 7HA gas turbines to power new gas-fired power plants. That’s in addition to eight 7HA turbines Duke has already purchased from GE Vernova. While the timing for deliveries was not specified, the announcement implies that Duke is getting its turbines sooner rather than later, which is saying something because lately there has been a years-long waiting list for these types of turbines. And yes, there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica. 
Yeah, it happened. And we’re not happy about it. Yesterday, the NYMEX “front month” futures contract for May sank below and stayed below $3/MMBtu, closing at $2.930/MMBtu, some 9.2 cents lower than the closing price from the day before. It was the lowest settlement price since Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. The spot price for physically traded natural gas slipped, too. If there was any bright spot, the NGI Appalachia Regional Average price, an average of all the spot price trades in the Marcellus/Utica region, gained a penny yesterday. 
Yesterday, MDN brought you the big news that EQT is buying out and merging in Olympus Energy (see 
Range Resources issued its first quarter 2025 update yesterday. Range produces a significant volume of NGLs (ethane and propane), in addition to methane (natural gas). Range CEO Dennis Degner told analysts yesterday that, no matter “how the tariff dust settles,” demand is expected to be “relatively strong” for its U.S. East Coast volumes of NGLs. Degner said that 80% of Range’s propane (LPG) production is exported by ship. “And all of it is going to Europe right now,” he said. “So we really don’t have a current exposure to the Chinese market.” Smart company.