Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Sep 17, 2024
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA energy groups don’t buy Harris’ ‘deathbed conversion’ on fracking; NATIONAL: Fed judge temporarily blocks Biden admin rule to limit gas flaring at oil wells; Noisy, hungry data centers are catching communities by surprise; Are Harris supporters ignorant or do they just hate Trump more than they love this country?; INTERNATIONAL: Earth’s greatest mass extinction 250 million years ago due to El Niño. Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Sep 17, 2024”
Hidden in last Friday’s weekly Baker Hughes official rig count is a big story happening in the Marcellus/Utica. From the 30,000-foot level, Friday’s latest rig count report appeared just fine. The national rig count, which counts all oil and gas rigs, added an astonishing eight rigs to the count after languishing for months — the biggest weekly gain in a year. Very nice. The M-U count maintained at 33, down from a few weeks ago, but still not completely terrible. But then you open the hood and look at the engine, and something startling happens. Pennsylvania is losing rigs, bleeding rigs, like crazy—four rigs gone in the last two weeks. And West Virginia is gaining those lost rigs. Typically, there’s no one answer as to why these things happen. Our best guess is that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), coming online from the northern panhandle of WV to southern Virginia, carrying natgas to markets outside the immediate region for higher prices, has much to do with this realignment.
We spotted a report about an aboveground pipeline that flows shale wastewater that sprung a leak and released an estimated 12,600 gallons of brine (salty water from deep below the surface) on the ground in Gilmore Township, Greene County, PA. The pipeline is owned by EQM Gathering, another name for Equitrans Midstream, which is now owned by EQT. The leaking pipeline connects to the Trust Well Site owned by EQT. It sure sounds like a serious spill (12,600 gallons) with the potential to contaminate local water supplies—until you dig into the state Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) report on the incident. 
A couple of interesting developments with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), which, unlike its dysfunctional cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), the SRBC continues to allow water withdrawals to supply water for shale fracking in northeastern Pennsylvania. The first development is that over the weekend (on Saturday), the SRBC Hydrologic Conditions Monitor showed low stream flows in some areas that triggered water withdrawal restrictions for water users, including seven shale gas water withdrawal locations (most of them for driller Repsol). The other development is that two days earlier, on Thursday, the SRBC approved new water withdrawal requests for 22 new projects, including eight from shale drillers! 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants to spend some of the $214+ million it’s receiving from the federal government’s Phase 1 & 2 program to plug orphaned conventional oil and gas wells on a research project to determine the potential health impacts of living near such wells. You may recall the flawed (totally fake) “research” conducted by the University of Pittsburgh in 2023 that purported to show a connection between shale drilling and childhood cancer clusters (see 
Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted efforts to blend hydrogen (H2) with natural gas (CH4) in power-generating plants. By EIA’s reckoning, ten power plants scattered across the country are either experimenting with mixing hydrogen with natgas right now or soon will. We have covered several of these projects here at MDN, including efforts by the Long Ridge Energy Terminal in Monroe County, OH, to blend Utica shale gas with hydrogen (see 
For the week of Sept. 2 – 8, 14 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica, less than half the previous week’s 32. The Keystone State (PA) had 13 new permits. PA’s top recipient was Seneca Resources, with six permits issued in Tioga County. Range Resources was #2 with four permits for Lycoming County. Chesapeake Energy had two permits in Bradford County, and Inflection Energy had a single new permit in Lycoming County. 
According to Pennsylvania regulation 25 Pa. Code § 78a.122(b)(6)(iv), a drilling company must provide a list of the chemicals intentionally added to the stimulation [fracking] fluid by name and chemical abstract service (CAS) number in a Completion Report. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says Apex Energy failed to provide that information on its reports for 37 shale wells in Westmoreland County drilled between March 20, 2018, and February 17, 2024. The DEP issued a NOV (Notice of Violation) to Apex on Sept. 9. 
Cove Point LNG is an LNG export facility located in Lusby (Calvert County), Maryland. It is one of the most technically advanced and environmentally sensitive LNG facilities in the world. We recall as Dominion Energy was building the facility, environmental wackos uttered shrill warnings of habitat destruction coming for the Chesapeake Bay (where it’s located) should the facility go into production (see 
It’s really fascinating to watch this presidential election. Yes, we’ve promised to try and keep the politics to a minimum, but we must report on things we notice that have the potential to affect the shale drilling industry in general, and the Marcellus/Utica in particular. Here’s an issue we cannot keep silent about. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, Kamala Harris hates fossil fuel energy and wants to eliminate it. She told a CNN moderator in 2019 that she favors “a ban on fracking.” Period. For the entire country. Yet now, because she must win Pennsylvania in order to win the race, she professes she is against a ban on fracking (see 
“We believe in using the resources we have in this basin to build a stronger tomorrow, without ignoring the critical realities of today,” said Marcellus Shale Coalition President Dave Callahan during his opening remarks at SHALE INSIGHT® last year. The MSC convenes its 14th industry-leading conference on September 24-26 at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, PA. Be sure to 
As you know, last year at about this time, the Bidenistas announced seven winners of the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games contest (see 
MDN will not publish on Friday, Sept. 13. Hey, it’s Friday the 13th! No, we’re not superstitious (at least too much). We do have a memory that ties in with Friday the 13th, which we share below. We’re not publishing because editor Jim Willis is taking a rare day off to spend with family. Jim’s son is taking him to a professional baseball game in Philadelphia, the Mets vs. the Phillies. Jim is a die-hard Mets fan—please don’t hold it against him!