Diversified Energy | Energy Companies | Fayette County | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Westmoreland County
Once Again, PA DEP Fails to Follow-up on Well Violations for Years
Last week, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had not followed up on the cleanup work needed for a shale well drilled some 12 years ago (see PA DEP Fails to Follow-up Forest County Shale Violations for 12 Yrs). As violations go, it’s pretty minor (tidying up the pad site), but it illustrates the lack of follow-up by the DEP. We have two more cases where the DEP issued violations and didn’t follow up—for YEARS. These two cases involve conventional wells. Read More “Once Again, PA DEP Fails to Follow-up on Well Violations for Years”
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility company in the country. In May 2023, TVA announced that it would convert the Kingston Fossil Plant (coal-fired plant) in East Tennessee to a natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity (see 
The NYMEX futures price for natural gas keeps climbing. Significantly. Last week, the “front month” contract for the NYMEX gained 46.8 cents per MMBtu (up 14% for the week). On Friday, the price closed at $3.748/MMBtu. The price soared 16.4 cents on Friday alone! Friday’s closing price was the highest since Monday, Jan. 9, 2023—in nearly two full years. U.S. natural gas storage withdrawals are “exceeding seasonal averages, and record liquefied natural gas (LNG) export volumes are maintaining strong demand,” said Brian Swan, senior commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, in a daily note. What’s next for the price? 
The dataheads (sounds better than geeks or eggheads) at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an interesting analysis on Friday detailing which states export the most and import the most electricity. In 2023, Pennsylvania exported 83.4 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity to other states in the PJM electric grid. That’s roughly 26% of all the electric power the Keystone State produced. Meanwhile, for the first time in years (maybe in forever?) Virginia became the #1 state importing electricity, importing 50.1 million MWh. Virginia is also in PJM, so it’s not a stretch to suggest Pennsylvania’s electric exports went (largely) to Virginia. 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA PUC Chairman Stephen DeFrank appointed Chair of NARUC Committee on Gas; NATIONAL: 2025 natural gas forecast; Trump threatens to try to regain control of Panama Canal; U.S. shale nears limits of productivity gains; EPA head Regan, who championed environmental justice, to leave office Dec. 31; INTERNATIONAL: EU still relies on Russia for a fifth of its gas needs; OECD fails to agree ban on foreign fossil fuel financing; Oil slips amid Fed signals and Trump tariff threats; Oil on track to average $80 in 2024, JP Morgan highlights; Gas traders count down to New Year’s; India, not China, set to lead in oil consumption growth. 
For the week of Dec 9 – 15, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica remained healthy. There were 22 new permits issued last week, down just a bit from the 28 issued the week before. The Keystone State (PA) issued 17 new permits, with the bulk of them, 11, going to a single driller, PennEnergy Resources, for a single pad in Beaver County. Seneca Resources scored three new permits in Tioga County. One permit each was issued to Pennsylvania General Energy (Lycoming County), Coterra Energy (Susquehanna County), and CNX Resources (Westmoreland County). 
In November, MDN told you that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
Penneco Environmental Solutions wants to build a second wastewater injection well in Plum Borough (Allegheny County), PA, next to an existing injection well. Penneco’s first wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, overcoming all sorts of smears, slanders, and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
Just yesterday, we noted the recent run-up in the NYMEX futures price for natural gas (see 
Just as the pandemic began to unfold in early 2020, Shell pulled out of a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Energy Transfer (ET) to build a new LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana (see 
One week ago, MDN told you that Ohio House Bill (HB) 308 had passed votes by both the full House and Senate and was heading to the desk of RINO Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature (see 
The price of natural gas, both the Henry Hub NYMEX futures price and the spot price, essentially drives more (or less) drilling for natural gas. Hence our frequent coverage of the price, at least when that price is over $3 per million British Thermal Units (MMBtus). The “front month” NYMEX contract closed higher again yesterday at $3.374/MMBtu. Over the past two days, the price has gone up a cumulative total of $0.16, or roughly 5%. The price has gone up four of the past six trading days and is now at the fourth-highest closing price for all of 2024. The question is, why? 
Two days ago, MDN brought you analysis from RBN Energy that said U.S. LNG feedgas demand in 2024 would average “just under” the average from 2023, the first time since we began exporting LNG in 2016 that we have not grown our exports year over year (see