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Drought Over? SRBC Approves New Shale Water Withdrawals in PA
Just two weeks ago, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) told all water users in the basin that have withdrawal permits, including shale drillers, they should review those permits, and if there are restrictions for withdrawals during low streamflow conditions, they need to make alternative plans (see SRBC Advises Water Permit Holders to Consider Alternative Sources). The concern is an ongoing drought in the Northeast. However, at the same time the commission was issuing its warning, it was also approving new water withdrawal projects!
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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 
The weekly rig count for the U.S. has continued to be anemic over the past two months. Baker Hughes, with its venerable rig count, reported last Friday that overall, the U.S. rig count continued to bleed rigs–down another five rigs to 682 in the week ending June 23. That’s the lowest count since April 2022 and the eighth week in a row the U.S. has lost active rigs. The good news for the Marcellus/Utica is that both the Marcellus and the Utica maintained the same rig levels last week. It’s good news they didn’t bleed any more rigs!
A month MDN told you about a coming real-life nightmare that the Everett LNG import terminal, which accepts and regasifies foreign natural gas, may shut down following the closure of New England’s biggest natural gas-fired power plant, the Mystic Generating Station in Everett, MA (see 
We have a federal court decision from an interesting case to share. From June 2005 to October 2007, U.S. Energy Development Corporation contracted with Superior Well Services (of Pennsylvania) to frack natural gas wells owned by U.S. Energy in (of all places) New York State. Yes, fracking used to (still does) happen in NY–at least with conventional wells. U.S. Energy filed a claim against Superior in October 2007, saying Superior had damaged 97 of its wells during fracking by using the wrong kind of chemical mixtures in its fracking fluid.
The biggest of the Big Oil companies, including Shell, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil, are making it quite clear that natural gas is here for decades to come. Leftists tried to sell the B.S. line that natural gas is a “short-term bridge to greener energy sources.” When that lie began to fall apart, leftists got agitated and began to sputter nonsense about natgas being a whole lot dirtier than anybody thought. Again, their lies are falling on deaf ears–at least the ears of Big Oil. Unless the left can bully the world’s biggest governments into destroying some of the biggest companies in the world–oil and gas companies–the only opinion that matters is that of the oil companies themselves because they are the ones who will (or will not) do more drilling.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Big Ugly Grifters (BUGS) are out to destroy the common man; People wouldn’t accept RGGI if they understood it was a statewide tax; NATIONAL: API raises concerns with proposed EPA GHG emissions rule; US LNG project approvals on track for record new volumes; This might be the Biden admin’s most ludicrous idea yet; INTERNATIONAL: Germany commits to 2.25 MMtpa LNG buy from Venture Global; Green movement and energy prices – theory of “effective pain.”
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The radicals of the Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul administrations have repeatedly delayed the project. NFG still wants to build it but needs more time. Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done–until Dec. 31, 2024 (see 
MDN recently reported that after eight years, Pennsylvania General Energy gave up on trying to build an environmentally safe wastewater injection well in Grant Township, Indiana County, PA (see 
In May, after years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) provided closure on what is and what is not considered “waters of the United States”–or WOTUS (see 
New shale permits issued for Jun 12-18 in the Marcellus/Utica gained one. There were 21 new permits issued, up from 20 the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 12 new permits in Pennsylvania, 6 new permits in Ohio, and 3 new permits in West Virginia. Snyder Brothers scored the most new permits, with 9 issued in Armstrong County, PA. INR had the second most new permits, with 4 permits issued in Carroll County, OH.
In the future, when everyone’s favorite groundhog Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of his hole in February to tell us whether or not there are another six weeks of winter, he may be looking at shale wastewater trucks coming and going on their way to a new underground injection well just outside of town. Yesterday the federal EPA issued a permit to G2 STEM LLC based in Fairfax, Virginia, to build a Class IID oil and gas wastewater underground injection well in Young Township, Jefferson County, PA. You may know the area by its famous boro, Punxsutawney.