Range Drilling 3 New Wells/Pads in Fawn Twp, Allegheny County, PA
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Range Resources, the first driller to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, has applied for and received a conditional use application to build three well pads in Fawn Township in Allegheny County, PA. The township secretary says a road into the property is now being built. Construction of the well pads is not expected “until the weather breaks.”
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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see 
XTO Energy began to drill four shale wells in Prospect Borough, Butler County, PA, in 2019. At least one of the wells was drilled down to a depth of nearly 2,000 feet. At some point since that time, XTO decided not to finish the wells and filed a request to plug the wells. A Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspector visited the well pad, the Coretsky well pad, in September of last year and issued a “failure to plug” notice of violation for the four wells (called the Patton wells). Although it took a few months, XTO said the equipment would be delivered last week and that, as of today (Monday), the process would begin to cap and plug the four abandoned wells.
Just one week ago, the price of natural gas, both the futures price and spot (physical) price, jumped — in some cases by four times in the space of just a couple of days (see 
Spire Inc. is the owner and operator of the Spire STL Pipeline, a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline in Scott County, IL, to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. Spire STL has been up and running since 2019 (see 
The Baker Hughes rig count gained rigs for the first time in three weeks last week. The count went from 619 active rigs two weeks ago to 620 last week — up a single rig. Better than nothing! The Marcellus/Utica count gained two (both in Pennsylvania) to land at 42 active rigs overall. PA had 21 rigs, up from 19, while OH maintained 13 rigs, and WV maintained eight rigs.
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There were 23 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 8-14, versus 18 permits issued for the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits last week. Ohio issued just 2 new permits. West Virginia issued 8 new permits — for the second week in a row. EQT scored the top slot for new permits, receiving 7 permits to drill in Lycoming and Greene counties in PA.
Shippers, including drillers, utility companies, and others that buy and sell natural gas, are now free to buy and sell producer-certified gas (PCG) or responsibly sourced gas (RSG) at all pooling points across the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) system following a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit). The judges of the DC Circuit dismissed a case brought by Antero Resources and EQT Corporation attempting to block TGP’s plan. We will explain.
Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is a form of trenchless drilling to install pipelines, like natural gas pipelines, underground without digging a big trench first. It uses directional drilling, similar to drilling a horizontal shale well, in order to install the pipeline. In 2018, Energy Transfer’s Sunoco Logisitics unit, which was building the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project at the time using HDD, and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) settled a lawsuit with radicalized green groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, the Clean Air Council, and the Mountain Watershed Association (see 
During a Pennsylvania House Republican Policy Committee hearing on strengthening rural communities held on Wednesday, Rep. Bud Cook (R-Waynesburg) didn’t hold back when assigning blame for why the state’s rural communities are losing population and experiencing economic growth. Cook said, “The overriding impediment is Governor Shapiro’s DEP,” referring to the Dept. of Environmental Protection. One of Cook’s chief complaints is how long it takes to get a simple permit issued from the DEP.
Here we go again with false allegations that drill cuttings from shale drillers are “radioactive.” In 2020, Tri-County Landfill Inc. submitted a permit application for the construction and operation of a municipal waste landfill in Liberty and Pine Townships, in Mercer County, PA. Judging by the reaction, the landfill will accept drill cuttings from Marcellus drillers. Tri-County previously operated a landfill at that location between 1950 and 1990 (pre-shale era). The landfill has been inactive since 1990. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a permit for the landfill to reopen in December 2020. The matter has been tied up with appeals since that time and has not yet reopened. The big, bad bogeyman being used to scare nearby residents is radioactivity.
According to Reuters, the amount of natural gas flowing to U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants (called feedgas) dropped to a one-year low this week as an Arctic freeze caused some energy firms to divert fuel to the domestic market, and as Freeport LNG’s facility in Texas experienced mechanical problems. Yep, another outage at Freeport. Surprised?
BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, recently provided a price forecast for the Henry Hub gas price all the way out to 2028. BMI’s forecast is much rosier than others we’ve read. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently predicted the Henry Hub price will average under $3/MMBtu in both 2024 and 2025. BMI, on the other hand, predicts the HH to hit an average of $3.40/MMBtu this year and $3.60 next year. Their lips to God’s ears!