Beaver County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Regulation | Shell
PA DEP Forms Ctte to Dole Out $5M in Shell Cracker Shakedown Cash
Although Shell maintains flaring and accidental emissions from its new multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, have not violated state and federal air standards, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says they have–on numerous occasions. Shell didn’t argue the point, and in May, the company agreed to pay nearly $10 million in fines and “contributions” to benefit local communities (see Shell Cracker Agrees to $10M Shakedown from PA, Restarting Now). The DEP announced yesterday that it had appointed a 17-member committee to figure out how to dole out $5 million to fund local community projects near the cracker.
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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 April, Williams filed a formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to upgrade Transco pipeline’s capacity in Alabama and Georgia. The Alabama Georgia Connector Project involves upgrades to five compressor stations that will increase capacity in the region by an extra 63.8 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). The mighty Transco pipeline is a 10,200-mile natural gas transportation system that extends from south Texas to New York City. Transco is the nation’s largest-volume natural gas pipeline system, transporting about 15% of the natural gas consumed in the United States. Williams reversed the flow on Transco years ago to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the south.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. 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 
Just before heading out the door on vacation last week, MDN editor Jim Willis had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jason Spiess of 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Tellurian seeking two or three equity partners for Driftwood LNG; NATIONAL: USA has raised CCS development grants to $777M since 2021; Next wave of LNG export projects to face labor challenges; A comprehensive critique of net zero fantasies; American shale spoils OPEC’s party again; INTERNATIONAL: India’s top gas importer says local demand rising.
New shale permits issued for Jun 26 – Jul 2 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic increase, thanks to a bump in Pennsylvania’s numbers. There were 39 new permits issued last week, way up from 11 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 30 new permits in Pennsylvania, 8 new permits in Ohio, and just 1 new permit in West Virginia. Coterra Energy scored the most new permits with a whopping 12 issued in Susquehanna County, PA (for two well pads). Range Resources had the second most new permits, with 7 permits issued in Washington County, PA (for one pad).
In early June, shale drillers could, for the first time, begin to apply for permits to drill under (not on top of) Ohio state lands and state parks under newly formulated rules established by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission (see 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the Dionysus well pad (see 
West Virginia’s budget year runs from July 1 in one year to June 30 of the next year. The most recent “2023” fiscal budget year ended on June 30. WV is rolling in the dough. The state ended the 2023 fiscal year with more than $1.8 billion in surplus funds, driven mainly by increased personal income tax and severance tax collections. The severance tax (oil, gas, and coal) accounted for only 15% of total tax collections for the 2023 fiscal year but accounted for 38% of the total $1.8 billion in tax revenue surplus.
The political situation in Pennsylvania is quite fascinating to watch. The PA House has a one-seat Democrat majority, which means all of the committees in the House are now (for the first time in years) run by Democrats. One of them, Rep. Greg Vitali from Delaware County (near Philadelphia), chairs the powerful House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. Immediately upon seizing power, Vitali tried to ram through a number of radical bills that would greatly harm (or even end) the Marcellus industry in the state. We previously told you members of his own party slapped him down, making him pull back and abandon two bills he really really wanted (see 
The weekly rig count for the U.S. finally, after nine straight weeks in a row, turned around–just a bit. With its venerable rig count, Baker Hughes reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count added six rigs, reversing a downward trend. There were 680 active rigs for the week ending July 7. Both the Marcellus and the Utica maintained the same rig levels for the past four weeks in a row with a cumulative 48 rigs. That number is down from an average of 52 it had been running for the first five months this year. The good news is that we haven’t lost any more rigs.
LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is an important market for Marcellus/Utica drillers. It’s also a big deal worldwide. In 2022, global trade in LNG set a record high, averaging 51.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a 5% increase compared with 2021. At one point in 2022, the U.S. became the largest LNG exporter in the world. But then there was an explosion and fire at the Freeport LNG export terminal in June (see 
MDN is taking a few days post-July 4th to rest and relax and recharge. We hope you had a great 4th holiday! We will be back on July 10th to catch you up on all the news related to the Marcellus and Utica shale region. We had hoped to bring you a permit report today for the week of June 26th through July 2nd, but the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has not yet (as of Wednesday, July 5th) updated its weekly report, so we will bring you that report first thing next week. If there is any earth-shattering news related to our region, we’ll break back in with an update. Otherwise, see you on July 10th!