Austin Master Services Misses Deadline, ODNR Steps in To Clean Site
Austin Master Services (AMS) is a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio. The Ohio Attorney General lodged charges against AMS in March, accusing the company of storing 16+ times more drill cuttings at the facility than it’s rated for (see Ohio AG Sues Austin Master Services for Unsafe Storage of Wastewater). A county judge ordered AMS to clean out the site and bring it back into compliance by July 22, or else AMS would be fined $200 per day, and the owner and CEO, Brad Domitrovitsch, would need to report to jail for a 30-day stint. Yesterday’s deadline came and went without compliance, so the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) is stepping in to do the cleanup work.
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This is BIG (and really great) news… Williams has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to bring the final pieces of the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project online by the end of this month. REAE expands the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. About 450,000 MMcf/d of the total capacity went online in late 2023 along Transco’s Leidy Line in Pennsylvania (see 
Yesterday, the Biden-Harris Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced selected recipients of over $4.3 billion in so-called Climate Pollution Reduction Grants from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) aimed at “community-driven solutions that tackle the climate crisis, reduce air pollution, advance environmental justice, and accelerate America’s clean energy transition.” In other words, it’s bribe money going to the Democrats’ favored donors and to states where they need votes this November. Handing out $4.3 billion will buy a LOT of votes. One of the big winners, unsurprisingly, is the swing state of Pennsylvania and its Democrat Governor, Josh Shapiro, who received $329 million (7.7% of the entire total).
Finally, there is some good news regarding Freeport LNG restarting. Reuters reports that an LNG carrier left one of Freeport LNG’s berths over the weekend, carrying the facility’s first cargo since July 5. The report also says another carrier was filling up yesterday, and two more vessels were waiting near the port. However, the facility is still running at only about one-third of its rated capacity (one of three trains).
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average monthly wholesale spot (not futures, but spot) natural gas price at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub fell by 20% to $2.56 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) between January and June of this year. In January, the Henry Hub price averaged $3.18/MMBtu, then dropped to $1.49/MMBtu in March, marking the lowest average monthly inflation-adjusted price since at least 1997. In addition, prices from February through April 2024 were the lowest ever recorded for those months.
Joe Manchin, U.S. Senator from West Virginia, can’t be gone soon enough for us. He sold out the country and his constituents when he voted for Biden’s Green New Deal, conveniently renamed the Inflation Reduction Act (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: McCormick: Casey is endorsing Kamala Harris’ anti-fracking agenda; NATIONAL: Heritage Foundation tells Rigzone oil demand will never peak; VP Harris has adopted some extreme anti-energy positions over the years; Oil and gas leaders know—Kamala Harris is not a laughing matter; Trump vows to boost U.S. oil production if elected president; INTERNATIONAL: Cash dries up for locals fighting climate change; Shovels in the ground on natural gas pipeline expansion.
A disappointing (but not surprising) decision from the Democrat leftists on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was issued last Thursday. The so-called Supremes ruled in favor of allowing three well-financed Big Green groups, including the Sierra Club, PennFuture, and Clean Air Council, to join a lawsuit attempting to force the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) obscene carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired plants in the Keystone State. Big Green can now participate, bringing along big money and attorneys to support the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is trying to force state participation in RGGI.
In June, MDN told you about a very small lease deal on offer for North Huntingdon Township in Westmoreland County, PA (see 
In the fall of 2021, President Biden signed into law the so-called Infrastructure Bill, some $1.2 trillion in pork barrel spending, passed with the help of turncoat Republicans (see 
In May, the supervisors of West Deer Township (Allegheny County), PA, held a regular monthly meeting. One item on the agenda was the potential adoption of revisions to the town’s oil and gas drilling ordinance. A number of (supposed) residents showed up to question the revisions and ask for stricter setbacks (a bigger distance from drilling to homes and other structures). Ultimately, the supervisors decided to delay a vote on the revisions, pushing it off until a future meeting (see 
Last November, Tellurian, a company founded by Charif Souki, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission warning investors that its financial situation raised “substantial doubt” that the company could continue as a going concern (see 
Freeport LNG, by all accounts, continues to be offline. It was supposed to restart one of its three “trains” (liquefaction units) last week (see 
The U.S. national oil and gas rig regained some lost ground last week by adding two rigs. The national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count now stands at 586 active rigs. After staying static for six weeks, the Marcellus/Utica added a rig last week. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio added a rig and now operates 11 active rigs. West Virginia remained the same with five active rigs. The M-U’s primary competitor, the Haynesville, lost one rig and now operates 36 rigs.
For the week of July 8 – 14, a total of 31 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania had a nice increase with 25 new permits issued. A full 9 of PA’s permits went to Snyder Brothers for a single well in Armstrong County. Another 6 permits went to EQT in PA’s Greene and Washington counties. There were 5 new permits in Ohio, all of them going to Encino Energy for a single pad in Guernsey County. West Virginia had a single new permit going to EQT in Wetzel County.