PA PUC Publishes Fee Schedule for Marcellus Impact Fee/Tax 2023
In December, Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), the agency charged with providing revenue projections along with impartial and objective analysis of fiscal, economic, and budgetary issues for the citizens and legislature of Pennsylvania, provided its best guess as to how much revenue the PA impact fee (i.e., severance tax) will generate from shale wells drilled or flowing in 2023 (see PA IFO Predicts Impact Tax Revenue to Drop 38% in 2023). The IFO bases its projections on the number of wells and the assessment for each well according to how many years it has been drilled. The agency that publishes the fees to be assessed for each well is the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC published the official list of impact fee charges for 2023 in last Saturday’s PA Bulletin.
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The Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca, PA (Beaver County) just hit a milestone: It’s been up and running (in a manner of speaking) for one year. Except during that one year, quite a bit of the time was spent NOT running due to various technical and equipment issues. According to a review done by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “the plant’s polyethylene units — the three clusters of pipes and vessels that turn ethylene into lentil-sized plastic beads — were down as much as they were running in that first year.”
The Baker Hughes rig count gained another rig last week. The count went from 620 active rigs two weeks ago to 621 last week — up a single rig. It went up a single rig the week prior, too. And that’s about where we are. We have floated between 620 and 625 for all of December and January — dipping to 619 for one week during that period. It appears we’ve hit the bottom and are stable. The Marcellus/Utica remained constant last week with 42 active rigs, after PA added two rigs the week before.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New LNG export capacity upends TX/LA natgas fundamentals; NATIONAL: Baker Hughes expects drop in North America drilling spend; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC+ plans to keep oil production cuts unchanged; Germany’s economy crumbling after chasing green dream.
The White House has made official what we warned you about yesterday (see 
There were 20 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 15 – 21, versus 24 permits issued during the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 11 new permits last week. Ohio issued 9 new permits. West Virginia had a big, fat zero new permits last week. Ascent Resources scored the most new permits issued, with 5 permits across two counties, Jefferson and Harrison, in Ohio. Encino Energy (EAP in the list) had the second most new permits issued with 4 permits in Harrison County, OH.
Yesterday, CNX Resources issued its fourth quarter and full year 2023 update. The company’s earnings totaled $537.83 million, or $2.89 per share in 4Q23. That compares with $1.17 billion, or $5.68 per share, in last year’s fourth quarter (down 54%). CNX’s revenue for 4Q23 fell 39% to $999.56 million from $1.64 billion last year. On the plus side of the ledger, CNX’s production was 146.9 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in 4Q23 (1.6 Bcfe/d), bringing the full-year total to 560.4 Bcfe of production — approximately 5 Bcfe above the high end of the company’s previously announced full-year guidance range. Production one year ago (in 4Q22) was 140.6 Bcfe — meaning 4Q23 production was about 4.5% higher.
Anti-fossil fuel fanatics in Ohio (and beyond) still can’t accept that they lost a battle to block drilling under (not on) Ohio state-owned land, including some Ohio state parks. In November, the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) met in a public forum and voted to allow shale drilling under three state-owned tracts of land: (1) all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County, (2) more than 300 acres of Valley Run Wildlife Area in Carroll County, and (3) 66 acres of the Zepernick Wildlife Area in Columbiana County (see 
About one month ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American arm of Banpu, Thailand’s largest coal mining company (see 
The Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline (owned by Enbridge) transports up to 3.09 Bcf/d through 1,131 miles of pipeline. Algonquin connects to Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO), Millennium Pipeline, and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and supplies New England with critically needed natural gas supplies for power generation and consumer use. As we told you in September, Enbridge conducted an open season to gauge interest in expanding Algonquin’s capacity to flow more gas into New England — mainly from the Marcellus/Utica — called Project Maple (see 
Amid all the bad news of the constant attacks by the Bidenistas against fossil energy (see today’s lead story about Biden attacking LNG), here is a story to warm your heart on a cold January day. So-called ESG funds set up to invest in companies that proclaim fealty to Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices are crashing and burning at a rapid pace. In the fourth quarter of 2023, U.S. fund clients withdrew a net $5.1 billion from ESG funds.
Two weeks ago, MDN warned you that the Bidenistas were conducting a secret “review,” being led by the Department of Energy (DOE), to evaluate whether regulators should consider mythical “climate change” when deciding whether a proposed natural gas export project meets “the national interest” (see