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FirstEnergy Nuke Bailout Payments Blocked by Ohio Supreme Court
FirstEnergy is up to its metaphorical rear-end in alligators. Not only has the Ohio Supreme Court blocked (for now) the collection of annual $150 million payments from the residents of Ohio given to FirstEnergy to prop up its uneconomic nuclear power plants, but multiple (over a dozen) lawsuits have been filed against the company by some of FirstEnergy’s biggest investors alleging fraud that has caused the company’s stock price to plummet.
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The five voting members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) met in early December and voted 4-0 (one abstention) to approve a 1,300-foot-long pier in Gibbstown, NJ which will be used to load LNG tankers (see 
In an effort to flow more natural gas to a starving New York City, Kinder Morgan cut a deal with utility company Consolidated Edison in 2019 to provide more gas by beefing up capacity along its Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) that feeds NYC, allowing Con Ed to avoid cutting customers off from natgas hookups (see 
The Pennsylvania Marcellus rig count ended 2020 at its lowest for the year. There were 18 shale rigs working in mid-December, down from 25 at the same point in 2019. Oil and gas data provider Enverus (used to be called Drillinginfo) cautions we should not look for drillers to add rigs in 2021, even if the price of natgas goes higher. Enverus says PA’s Marcellus drillers have (our words) learned their lesson.
According to the data experts at Enverus, the U.S. oil and gas rig count ended the year at 407 rigs, down slightly more than 50% from the same point in 2019. The Marcellus play ended the year with 32 active rigs, and the Utica with 6 active rigs (total of 38 active rigs in the M-U). At the end of 2019, there were 840 rigs operating in the U.S.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Environmentalists see opportunity for legislature in 2021, but also expect repeats of old fights; DEP sets Jan. 13 virtual hearing on Chapter 102/105 permits for Phase I PennEast Pipeline project; Biden and Harris know energy development is a winning issue in Pennsylvania; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Apparent radical leftist attack on gas lines in Colorado, leaving thousands without heat; Negotiators announce deal on climate change bill; Massachusetts will require all new cars sold be electric by 2035; NATIONAL: Evangelicals salute the Biden climate team; ‘A slap in the face’: The pandemic disrupts young oil careers; Why President Biden won’t be bad for natural gas; Five U.S. LNG projects get export term extended through 2050; US producers capture record volume of associated gas production in 2020; The top 10 RBN energy prognostications for 2021; John Kerry: false prophet of the climate apocalypse; INTERNATIONAL: Company produces methane-capturing face mask for cows.
We wish you a Merry Christmas..and a Happy New Year! MDN will take off (i.e. no new stories posted) between Dec. 24 and New Year’s Day in observance of the holiday season. Don’t worry, we’ll still keep an eye on the news and if anything earth-shattering happens, we’ll post about it. However, our intent is to take a break from writing for an entire week. We will see you again on Monday, January 4th.
Below is a list of the top 10 most-read stories from 2020 on the MDN website. It is cliche now to say it, but we’ll say it anyway: We can’t wait for 2020 to be over and to put it behind us. We’ve made this article free and open to the public. Feel free to share the link with others who may be interested in a recap of the M-U industry for 2020! We’ve appended a postscript to each summary to update you on any key developments since that story was first published.
We have some super-exciting news to share–what we believe is an MDN exclusive. DeepRock Disposal Solutions has secured all of the necessary permits and authorizations it needs (over 30!), including authorization from the U.S. Coast Guard, to begin transporting shale (produced) wastewater via barge on the Ohio River. DeepRock will begin its barge service in first quarter 2021.
A well in the Marcellus Shale in (of all places) Plum Borough in Allegheny County, PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh) has become the longest onshore lateral drilled in the Marcellus Shale. Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley Exploration) has drilled and completed a well with a 20,060-foot lateral–3.8 miles long!
What if we gave the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) a $2.5 million grant to study a link between peanut butter and childhood cancer. Researchers could only use the money to study any potential link between peanut butter and kids getting rare cancers. Sounds absurd, right? What if there is NO link between peanut butter and cancer in kids? What if there IS a link to some other environmental factor like, say, an old uranium dumpsite nearby? But the remit is ONLY to research peanut butter. Sound silly? Sound stupid? Substitute “shale drilling” for “peanut butter” and you can see how absurd it is for Pennsylvania to announce awarding $2.5 million to Pitt to study a single potential cause for rare childhood cancers in southwestern PA.
Last week Pennsylvania issued 25 new shale well drilling permits in both northeast and southwest PA, although most of the permits for SWPA. Ohio issued 4 new shale well permits, all of them to the same company (Encino Energy) and the same well pad (in Harrison County). West Virginia issued 6 new shale well permits, one in Lewis County and the rest in Tyler County.
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling (drill cuttings). The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. Yesterday Nuverra announced its board of directors has approved the adoption of a “limited duration stockholder rights plan” (i.e. poison pill provision) to “protect stockholder interests.”