Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Mar 19, 2024
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Is Gov. Shapiro’s pivot toward energy taxes in PA driving unions to GOP?; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: LNG developer Tellurian to explore sale, CEO steps down; Exxon CEO says hydrogen project at risk without IRA tax credits; NYC pols urge Albany to OK tax break for ‘green’ mandate; NATIONAL: U.S. crude oil exports reached a record in 2023; Team Biden undermines American, European energy security; INTERNATIONAL: Exploding energy demand places spotlight on decarbonization; Aramco investing in renewables but slams fantasy of no O&G; Globalists hallucinate that humanity’s “micro-second” is mightier than galactic forces.
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Some fairly big news broke last week just as MDN editor Jim Willis was taking a two-day break. So let’s get caught up. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program. Same end result: It would kill Marcellus-fired power plants in the state, driving them to close and relocate to West Virginia and Ohio, states that don’t engage in the lunacy of taxing carbon emissions from power plants.
This one is too funny. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a leftist liberal Democrat and the chosen candidate of the environmental left, appeared at a Philadelphia union hall for a speech last week to tout a hydrogen hub that is supposedly coming to the area, called the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (MACH2). The MACH2 project is actually centered in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware but will give a few economic table scraps to the Philly area, which excites and titillates PA politicians. Early in Shapiro’s “ain’t hydrogen just great” speech, Maya van Rossum, THE Delaware Riverkeeper (that’s what she calls herself), got up and began to shout down Shapiro. That’s right! The guy SHE voted for and helped elect! You see, Miss Maya (hereinafter to be called Mouthy Maya) doesn’t like hydrogen hubs, even “clean” hubs like the MACH2 project.
A three-judge panel from the federal D.C. Circuit spent two hours on Friday hearing arguments for and against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Williams’ Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project. REAE is an expansion of the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. Part of the project was done and went online last year (see 
In April 2022, MDN reported that the top brass at Kinder Morgan, the owner and operator of the Elba Island LNG export facility (also known as Southern LNG), was considering an expansion of its modestly-sized facility (see 
CNX Resources was slapped with a “notice of violation” (NOV) by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for withdrawing over 1.8 million gallons of water in Washington County, PA (for use in shale gas fracking) without first seeking the proper “Mother, May I?” approvals. The withdrawals happened over a 22-day period in the summer of 2023. Yes, it takes the DEP a looooong time to respond to so-called violations. When CNX realized it didn’t have express permission to withdraw the water, the company immediately reported the situation and corrected it. Still, DEP wants a new plan to prevent it from happening again. The plan is due today.
There were 19 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Mar. 4 – 10, up 2 from 17 permits issued the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 11 new permits. Ohio issued 5 new permits. And West Virginia issued 3 new permits. Range Resources and Ascent Resources tied for most new permits with 5 each. Range received 5 permits to drill in two PA counties: Lycoming and Washington. Ascent received 5 permits to drill in Belmont County, OH. Chesapeake Energy got 3 permits to drill in Bradford County, PA, and Seneca Resource also received 3 permits for Tioga County, PA. Southwestern Energy scored 2 permits for Ohio County, WV, and CNX Resources received a single permit for Marshall County, WV.
Last week, the Baker Hughes rig count added the seven rigs it had lost the week before. The count went from 622 active rigs two weeks ago back up to 629 last week. The national count is officially rangebound. Since last October, the national count has gone as low as 616 and as high as 629. And that’s it. No higher and no lower. The Marcellus/Utica cumulatively lost one rig last week and now runs 43 rigs. Pennsylvania lost two rigs and now operates 22 rigs. Ohio stayed the same at 12 rigs. And West Virginia picked up one of PA’s rigs and now operates nine rigs (up from eight the prior week).
MDN editor and writer Jim Willis needs to step away from writing duties for a couple of days due to a tragic death in the family.
CNX Resources, headquartered in Pittsburgh, is the latest major Marcellus/Utica driller to announce a pullback in spending and production due to low-low prices that natural gas is fetching. Yesterday, CNX announced the company will “delay completions activities on three upcoming Marcellus Shale pads consisting of 11 wells to avoid bringing incremental volumes into the current oversupplied market.” The delay means CNX will spend $50 million less on drilling in 2024 and produce 30 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) less over the course of this year.
CNX Resources filed a request with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in April 2023 to build two pipelines — two for natural gas — along a 13.9-mile route in Bell, Loyalhanna and Salem Townships in Westmoreland County. An additional 4-mile pipeline would be built for water. Called the Slickville Trunkline Project, the DEP told CNX last December (yes, it took the agency eight months to reply!) that the application was “incomplete” and that CNX had 60 days to provide the extra info.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently (maybe yesterday?) posted a notice on its website announcing that conventional oil and gas well operators will not be eligible for new methane reduction well plugging grants (free money!) if they are not in compliance with state law paperwork requirements. Channeling their inner schoolmarm, the DEP tells drillers if they don’t have the proper “reports” filed about those wells, they (a) won’t see any money from Biden’s bloated giveaway program, and (b) the DEP will, sooner or later, come knocking and will fine them for paperwork transgressions. The old carrot and stick.
The blowhard Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, took a bow last year to tout that “his” administration (as opposed to the Democrat who preceded him, Tom Wolf) had plugged more than 130 abandoned old oil and gas wells in the state, more than “the previous eight years combined” (see 
Last month, MDN told you that several New York Democrat legislators introduced a new bill to ban the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) in any process to extract natural gas or oil in the Empire State (see