Politicians, Others Tour 2 Lithium-from-Wastewater Plants in NEPA
Yesterday, Congressman Dan Meuser (PA-09) joined Pennsylvania State Representative Jonathan Fritz (PA-111), other state legislators, and industry leaders to tour two lithium-from-wastewater facilities in Susquehanna County, PA, followed by a roundtable discussion focused on positioning PA as a national leader in the domestic production of critical minerals like lithium and rare earth elements. Of particular interest for us is that the name/location of one of the two facilities was officially revealed, something MDN did in June. (You stay ahead of the curve when you read MDN!) Read More “Politicians, Others Tour 2 Lithium-from-Wastewater Plants in NEPA”
A group of 26 financial officers (state treasurers) from 21 states sent letters to 18 major financial institutions this week, including BlackRock, warning them to abandon environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices if they wish to continue doing business with their states. Notably, Pennsylvania’s Treasurer, Stacy Garrity, was one of the signatories on the letter. West Virginia’s Treasurer, Larry Pack, signed, too. Unfortunately, Ohio’s Treasurer, Robert Sprague (a Republican), was NOT one of the signatories. Curious. 
Freeport LNG has become something of a punchline with respect to the frequent outages experienced at the facility. Except, it’s no laughing matter. Outages at Freeport have happened so frequently that we’ve lost count. Wednesday, the facility was offline again, affecting gas flows to (and from) the facility on Wednesday and Thursday. This time, the reason for the outage was that power to the City of Freeport and surrounding communities, including the LNG plant, was out. Which raises the question, doesn’t Freeport LNG have a backup generator for times like that? Apparently not. When Freeport goes down, it affects natural gas prices here at home and around the world. Yes, this one facility has that kind of impact. 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: We expect rapid electricity demand growth the mid-Atlantic; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Sempra and JERA announce agreement for LNG from Port Arthur LNG Phase 2; CP2 and Pelican highlight recent spate of FID’s for Gulf Coast gas market; NATIONAL: The rise of the Climate Right; NETL determines naturally occurring signals can help improve O&G production and safety; Strong returns, low costs attract investors and consolidators to mineral/royalty firms; INTERNATIONAL: Oil dips on inflation, geopolitical jitters; What should the long-run oil price be?; India tells refiners to draw up plans for non-Russian crude; EU considers pooling demand from companies to buy more US gas. 
Expand Energy, formed by the merger of Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy, is the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. with approximately 1.9 million leased net acres. The company operates in three distinct regions: Northeast Appalachia (Pennsylvania), Southwest Appalachia (mostly West Virginia, but also Pennsylvania and Ohio), and the Haynesville (Louisiana). The company issued its second quarter 2025 results yesterday. In 2Q25, Expand operated an average of 11 rigs, drilling 49 wells and turning 59 wells in line to sales, resulting in net production of approximately 7.20 Bcfe per day (92% natural gas). Notably, the company has cut $100 million from its capital budget this year, yet says it will maintain production at current levels. 
NOTE: We owe Pin Oak an apology. We got this one wrong. In our original post, we implied that Pin Oak was guilty (or at least tardy) of not restoring multiple wells it had purchased from Geopetro. In fact, the exact opposite is true, as you will read below. MDN spoke to Pin Oak after publishing this post, and the company was kind enough to send us a clarification.
In January 2023, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
The Commonwealth Court in Pennsylvania is extremely important. It is one of two intermediate appellate courts (the other being Superior Court). The jurisdiction of the nine-judge Commonwealth Court is limited to appeals from final orders of certain state agencies (including the Department of Environmental Protection) and certain designated cases from the Courts of Common Pleas involving public sector legal questions, government regulation, and certain matters involving not-for-profit organizations. There is an open seat on Commonwealth Court. The Republican running, Matt Wolford, would be a great addition. 
In January, Constellation Energy (a huge power-generating company) announced a deal to buy out and merge with Calpine (another huge power-generating company). Calpine owns 79 energy facilities across the country, generating some 27 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, with a large number located in the eastern U.S. Many of Calpine’s facilities use natural gas to produce electricity. The two companies combined would own almost 60 GW of nuclear, natural gas, geothermal, hydro, wind, solar, cogeneration, and battery storage. Although several regulatory agencies must sign off on the deal, the primary agency that needs to clear it is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Last week, FERC gave its stamp of approval. 
In the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Today in Energy online publication, the EIA lays out the case that more Marcellus/Utica molecules will help supply Gulf Coast LNG export facilities in the future. The EIA says the economics of producing more gas in the Appalachian Basin are more favorable. It’s just cheaper to produce natural gas in the M-U. The EIA’s models show that natural gas is and will transit through the Eastern Midwest region on the way to the Gulf Coast. Pipelines will carry our molecules over (to the Midwest) and then down (to the Gulf Coast). It’s a beautiful thing! 
In 2009, during the Obamadroid administration, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted a major regulatory rule called the “endangerment finding.” The finding concluded that six so-called greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) — constitute an endangerment to public health and welfare due to their contribution to global warming (which is a complete hoax). The finding gave the EPA the power to regulate those gases under the Clean Air Act. Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin released a proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, which has been used to justify over $1 trillion in regulations, including President Autopen’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate. 
“The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate…shake it off, shake it off.” – Taylor Swift
In December 2022, Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Company (KU), both subsidiaries of PPL Corporation, announced a plan to replace 1,500 megawatts of aging coal-fired generation (nearly one-third of Kentucky’s coal fleet) with two 645-MW natural gas combined-cycle units along with several unreliable, intermittent solar projects (see