PA DEP Doing “Top to Bottom” Review of Gas Storage After Big Leak
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas Storage Well in Cambria County, PA is Leaking). It took two weeks (14 days) for the leak to get fixed, after it had leaked roughly 1.4 billion cubic feet into the air (see Storage Well Leak Fix in Cambria County Failed, Leaked 1.4 Bcf). The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is currently conducting a “top to bottom” review of how it regulates storage facilities following that incident.
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In early 2015, MDN told you the then-Obama administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) did a disservice to not only the drilling industry, but the wind industry, farmers, and the construction industry, when it listed the northern long-eared bat as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (see 
Last week (Nov. 21-27) the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells slumped to 17 from the prior week’s 26. In Pennsylvania, 12 permits were issued, eight to Seneca Resources (one pad) in Cameron County, and four to Chesapeake Energy (one pad) in Bradford County. In Ohio, four permits were issued to Encino Energy, one in Carroll County and three (one pad) in Harrison County. And West Virginia at least received a single new permit, for Antero Resources in Doddridge County, after getting skunked the previous week.
NATIONAL: Vehicle-to-grid technology could make EVs an asset to the power grid; U.S. LNG exports remain flat as domestic market braces for cold season; INTERNATIONAL: Scholz welcomes Qatar LNG deal as ‘building block’ for German energy security.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a part of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, voted to adopt a last-minute, rushed-through-in-a-hurry regulation to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions (and by extension, methane emissions) from conventional oil and gas operations in the state. The DEP and EQB had more than five years to work on these regulations and chose to fritter away the time. Faced with losing federal highway budget money without a new regulation in place, they rushed it–and botched it. Now the mom-and-pop oil and gas companies across the state will pay the price (and some will go out of business).
In February, MDN brought you news about a “last mile” pipeline from Dominion Energy (see 
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Diversified has aggressively moved to control methane emissions from its operations over the past year (see 
Yet another area heavily infested with far-left Democrats has voted to abolish the freedom of residents to choose their own energy source. The Montgomery County (Maryland) County Council voted 9-0 (all nine are Dems) to ban new natural gas hookups beginning in 2026. Montgomery County is a suburb of the D.C. swamp (lots of swamp dwellers in Montgomery). The County Executive, also a Dem, said he supports the ban and will sign it into law. This is what happens under one-party rule when that party doesn’t give a damn about the poor people and people of color who will end up being most affected by such a ban.
The partisan bully Josh Shapiro, far-left Attorney General in Pennsylvania (who is becoming Governor on Jan. 1, to PA’s shame), has claimed victory in converting what was at best an accident into a crime against Coterra Energy (née Cabot Oil & Gas). Yesterday in a courtroom in Susquehanna County, PA, Coterra plead “no contest” to a single misdemeanor charge Shapiro ginned up against the company over stray methane in a few water wells in Dimock, PA going back 14 years. It is a horrible miscarriage of justice. We wouldn’t blame Coterra if they NEVER drill another well in the state.
The Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) has just published its “2022 Size and Impact Report” (Executive Summary below). In general, the report shows how the U.S. plastics industry, which is critical and necessary for modern existence, is growing. Manufacturing plants that use plastics once moved overseas and are now returning the U.S. Why? To take advantage of cheap plastics being produced here as a result of shale energy. Here’s something that surprised us about the report: Ohio is the #1 state in the entire country for the number of jobs in the plastics industry. Ohio beat out both California and Texas (the two most populous states in the country) in plastics employment. Wow!
Most New Yorkers are clueless about a law passed in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (or “Climate Act”), which limits carbon dioxide emissions to zero (an impossibility) by 2050 (see 
The Bidenistas continue their drive to kill fossil energy production in this country. The latest attack comes from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a part of the Dept. of Interior. Earlier this week, the BLM released a new draft regulation to “address the waste of natural gas during the production of oil and gas on federal and Tribal lands.” Sounds like a good thing, right? The regulation will force expensive new equipment to be purchased, enforce new methods to reduce methane emissions, and in general, bury both new drillers and existing producers under mountains of paperwork required to prove wells aren’t leaking methane. One of the places this proposed new reg will affect is the Allegheny National Forest (ANF) in northwestern Pennsylvania.