CNX Resources | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Noble Energy | Pennsylvania | Westmoreland County
SWPA Reservoir, CNX Reach $600K Settlement re Royalty Deductions
CNX has reached a settlement with the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) in a lawsuit brought by MAWC in 2016 claiming that CNX (and partner Noble Energy) claimed post-production deductions from royalties that should have been paid to MAWC. The original lawsuit sought combined damages of $3.6 million. The final number to be paid by CNX, according to reports, is $600,000.
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The mighty Shell ethane cracker seems to have “issues” in getting and staying fully up to speed. We’ve previously reported on a series of emergency flaring episodes at the plant (see 
A disabled Navy veteran and his wife, who live in a rural, wooded area of Cambria County, PA, say their lives were upended beginning in 2017 when Sunoco (Energy Transfer) began constructing the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline across their property. According to the vet, Sunoco cut down more than 60 large trees on his property, destroyed several small ponds, destroyed his water well, and destroyed (caved in) his septic system. The property is now susceptible to frequent flooding and sewage backups into the house.
We continue to be majorly disappointed with the new “Acting” Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, Rich Negrin. Last Friday, we told you that Negrin is hewing to the far-left, promoting the concept that all wells and pipelines in poor communities and communities of color are automatically racist (see 
We have been closely tracking the restart of the shuttered Freeport LNG export terminal following its emergency shutdown in June 2022 after an explosion and fire. Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted permission for the final pieces of the facility to return to full service (see 
Talk about brazen. The “reporters” of Bloomberg, who report exactly what the Democrat Party dictates they should report, are bragging about how Big Banks and Big Investment Firms are now burying information about ESG requirements in their documentation (just not talking about it) in order to “avoid losing lucrative business.” That’s right. Banks and investment firms (like SVB, now failed, and BlackRock, the largest investment firm in the world) haven’t actually changed their policies–they just change the way they talk about it. They hide it. Cover it up. Change the words.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: McNally announces $2.3M for Utica Shale Academy of Ohio; Pa. can be leader in natural gas production; NATIONAL: Oil falls Friday but posts weekly gain; Bank default contagion fears hit oil prices hard; Pulling back the curtain on North America’s crude oil trading market; Biden goes full radical in defense of ESG investing; INTERNATIONAL: Spain presses importers of Russian LNG.
The sharp analysts at RBN Energy have sifted through the announcements and “guidance” statements from 42 of the country’s major publicly-traded oil and natural gas drillers for 2023. Among them are 11 gas-focused drillers, nine of which have operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. Looking at the list of 11 gas-focused drillers, RBN finds production will be just about the same in 2023 as it was in 2022–projecting a dip of 1% this year. The analysis also finds collectively that the 11 gas-focused drillers will spend around 9% more on drilling this year due to Bidenflation. Spending more to produce the same–not a winning formula for a politician to run on.
So-called “environmental justice” is a buzzword used by the left over the past decade or so. It is a euphemism, a code word for “any well pad or pipeline or any kind of oil and gas infrastructure that gets built anywhere near a community with a large population of poor folks or black/brown folks is automatically considered racist.” Environmental justice is the antithesis of American freedom and the American sense of equal justice for all under our laws. The left screams “racist” when they can’t compete on the basis of ideas, a tactic they use to shut down arguments. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s new “Acting” Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Rich Negrin, spouted environmental justice nonsense yesterday at a House hearing on the budget.
In a process that began in December 2021, Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) announced it had contracted with Project Canary to monitor methane emissions from both the company’s drilling operations and the company’s pipeline operations (see 
We have been closely tracking the restart of the shuttered Freeport LNG export terminal following its emergency shutdown in June 2022 after an explosion and fire. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted permission for Freeport to restart two of three liquefaction “trains” at the facility in February (see 
It’s time to divest from (and cancel any policies with) one of the world’s top 10 insurers–Chubb. The company has caved to leftist radicals by announcing a new policy of refusing to insure new oil and gas projects unless those projects reduce methane emissions to pretty much zero. It is an outright assault and attack on oil and gas companies. Pay attention Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and other right-minded states! Your states need to pull any insurance policies or dealings with Chubb. Add them to the “we don’t do business with” list along with BlackRock. Refuse to do business with them–cut them off.
Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and public speaker. Over the past three decades, his articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Review, Field & Stream, and Austin Chronicle. Last month, Bryce published an article on the Substack website that reveals the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex spends on the order of $4.5 billion each year on anti-fossil fuel activities (see 
New shale permits issued for Mar. 13-19 in the Marcellus/Utica rose by four from the prior week. There were 34 new permits issued in total last week, including 24 new permits for Pennsylvania, 4 new permits for Ohio, and 6 new permits in West Virginia. Last week the top receiver of new permits across PA and OH was Chesapeake Energy with 7 new permits spread across three PA counties: Bradford, Sullivan, and Wyoming. Range Resources received 6 new permits in Washington County, PA.