PA DEP Program Gives Fed $$ to Plug “Lower Priority” Orphaned Wells
In August, the Biden-Harris administration promised (but hasn’t yet delivered a dime of) up to $152 million in “Phase 2” federal money, i.e., your taxpayer dollars, to help plug old conventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania (see Convenient Timing: Biden-Harris Promise Pa. Another $152 Million). In September, Biden-Harris said a check was in the mail for $76 million for “Phase 1” of the same thing (see Biden-Harris Bribe Pa. with Check for $76 Million to Plug Old Wells). It is grotesquely CORRUPT. It is vote-buying. PA Gov. Josh Shapiro says the check was received, so he’s now handing out some of that $76 million to buy votes among the oil and gas sector. Yesterday, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced a new program that hands out some of the $76 million to “lower priority” orphaned wells. Read More “PA DEP Program Gives Fed $$ to Plug “Lower Priority” Orphaned Wells”
Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw believes he has a solution to help fund plugging many of the state’s ~350,000 orphaned and abandoned conventional oil and gas wells. Yaw recently introduced a bill, Senate Bill (SB) 1330, that directs the PA Department of General Services to sell any alternative energy credits it owns from buying unreliable solar energy and use the funds to plug old wells. The proposal, which could generate upward of $227 million, drives the enviro-left nuts. 
In January, MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a plan by Catalyst Energy to convert an existing conventional gas production well on Route 646 in Cyclone (Keating Township in McKean County, PA) into a shale wastewater injection well (see 
MDN previously told you that gas flows (called “feedgas”) heading to the Cove Point LNG export facility along the coast of Maryland had fallen to zero as of Sept. 20 because the facility is undergoing annual maintenance (see 
We’re not high finance people (nor are we lawyers), but we do the best we can to explain financial (and legal) news that impacts companies and individuals in the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday, Ascent Resources, a privately held company focusing 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale, announced it is floating new unsecured notes that mature in 2032 to purchase and payoff already-existing unsecured notes that were due to be paid (“maturing”) in 2026. We call them IOUs. Ascent is hoping to raise $600 million by selling the new notes. 
NATIONAL: When will USA crude oil production peak?; Government won’t sell new oil leases for the first time since 1958; INTERNATIONAL: New Fortress Energy ships Mexico’s first LNG cargo for export. 
EQT Corporation is now the #2 largest natural gas driller in the U.S. following the merger of Chesapeake Energy with Southwestern Energy to form Expand Energy Corporation (see today’s lead story). EQT took the opportunity yesterday, while everyone was focused on the shiny new object (Expand Energy), to file a Form 8-K with the SEC announcing it is laying off 15% of its entire workforce. EQT says the layoffs are a result of too many workers following the merger with its former midstream division, Equitrans, in July (see 
We spotted a press release about new leadership at the top of Calpine Corporation, one of the largest power producers in the U.S. with major assets in the upper East Coast area (fed by Marcellus/Utica molecules). The company’s CFO, Andrew Novotny, is becoming the CEO. Beyond the tie-in with the M-U because the company uses our molecules, we have a fond memory of one of Calpine’s gas-fired power plants in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (see 
Two oilfield services companies—Axis Energy Services LLC and Brigade Energy Services LLC—jointly announced the closing of an agreement to merge and form the nation’s largest well servicing company. The new company will retain the Axis Energy name and will remain headquartered in Dallas, TX. According to Axis, the transaction creates the nation’s leading company for completion services, workover solutions, and plug and abandonment operations. The newly combined company boasts more than 1,700 employees and 200 active and marketable workover rigs—the largest single fleet in the industry. The company has a “strong presence” in the Marcellus/Utica. 
In September 2023, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion had agreed to sell the company’s remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt (see 
A group of 41 members of Congress (4 Senators and 37 Congressmen/women) are asking Dept. of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm for information about the so-called “pause” in LNG export approvals. It appears the DOE relied on a prematurely released “study” by known anti-fossil fuel Cornell professor Robert Howarth as the scientific basis for imposing the pause (which is really a ban). The Congressfolks sent a blunt letter to the nutty Granholm requesting immediate answers to specific questions. Don’t hold your breath that the dysfunctional DOE will respond anytime soon. 
Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) wants to install a tiny 3.7-mile gathering pipeline in Lycoming County, PA, to connect several PGE wells to the Transco pipeline system, along with two 8-inch water pipelines of about the same length (see 
While there are a number of interstate pipelines that crisscross the Marcellus/Utica, there is one pipeline system that is key to moving molecules out of our region to other markets, particularly in the southeast and the Gulf Coast: Transcontinental Gas Pipeline LLC (Transco), owned by Williams. Transco stretches from the Gulf Coast to New York City and was originally designed to flow gas produced in the Gulf northward. A number of years ago, Williams reversed the flow on Transco, and most of the time, it now flows M-U molecules southward to Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and beyond. When sections of Transco undergo maintenance, flows are reduced, driving down spot prices for natgas sold by drillers to the pipeline but raising the price paid by customers on the other end of the pipeline. And when maintenance is done and flows return, it reverses. 
Air Products, headquartered in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania (Allentown area), once manufactured huge rocket-looking “production trains” or “heat exchangers,” which are pieces of equipment that turn natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG), in a plant in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The heat exchangers manufactured by Air Products in Wilkes-Barre were two-thirds of a football field long (180 feet) and used by plants all over the world to condense natural gas into a liquid. Air Products shut down the Wilkes-Barre plant in 2017 (see