PA Enviro Quality Board Approves Massive Hike in Shale Permit Fee
In Ohio, it costs drillers $5,500 to file for and receive a permit to drill a new shale well. In West Virginia, the cost is $10,150. In Pennsylvania, it has (until now) cost drillers $5,000 for a new shale well permit. Following a vote yesterday by the state Environmental Quality Board (EQB), that number is zooming to the top of the M-U list: $12,500 (2 1/2 times the previous fee). With current low gas prices, it’s pretty easy to predict new drilling permits in PA are going to crash and burn in 2020. The received wisdom is true: You always get less of what you tax more.
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In a coordinated attack on Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1100, aimed at attracting NEW petrochemical investment to the state, Big Green has launched a letter-writing campaign to newspapers to try and shame PA Senate Republicans into voting against the state’s future economic and jobs bonanza. Fat chance Big Green!
The ticket to getting elected in uber-liberal southeastern Pennsylvania (in the Philadelphia suburbs) is to track left with your politics. Even the few elected Republicans in SEPA are nothing more than Democrat-lite in their philosophy and voting. Two Democrats who unseated PA House Republicans in Chester County in 2018 by running against the Mariner East pipeline project, are now being challenged because of their pipeline positions.
The sleaziest of Pennsylvania’s Big Green groups–THE Delaware Riverkeeper and PennFuture–have filed a “friend of the court” (amicus) brief in a federal lawsuit hoping they can help gut the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by denying FERC the only way the agency has of combating these sleazy groups–something called a tolling order.
Andrew Cuomo makes us puke. Literally. Cuomo, Governor of New York, became a dictator and stripped away the property rights of citizens living in NY in 2015 when he autocratically decided to prohibit shale fracking throughout the state (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio Supreme Court to rule whether ODMA supersedes OMTA in severed O&G interests; Dominion Energy donates $1.6 million to nonprofits; M-U rig counts steady this month, down sharply from last year; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Virginia Senate panel OKs offshore drilling, fracking bans; NATIONAL: EIA predicts crude oil prices to fall 1H20, then rise in 2021; Climate serfdom is no future, it’s the road to destruction; Halliburton right sizing North American land business to hold market share; INTERNATIONAL: Trump tries out new climate line of attack; Trump urges Europe to embrace LNG, reject climate ‘pessimism’; A competitive analysis of the European gas market: implications for natural gas producers.
It’s full speed ahead for the Adelphia Gateway Pipeline project in southeastern Pennsylvania. In December the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval for the project (see 
Seneca Resources, the drilling arm of National Fuel Gas Company, does most of its exploration and production in central and western Pennsylvania (although it also does some drilling in California). A spokesman for Seneca recently went on the record to talk about the company’s prolific 2019 production, with a forecast for 2020 (production is going UP). However, the company plans to ax one of its three rigs in 2020.
Electric fracking (or e-fracking) continues to displace traditional fracking in the Marcellus/Utica. What’s the difference between the two? Traditional fracking uses diesel-fueled engines to produce electricity to power pressure pumps for hydraulic fracturing operations. Electric fracking uses natural gas from the well pad to power turbines to create electricity. Electric fracking fleets are roughly half the size of traditional diesel fleets–and a whole lot quieter.
Last Friday (and again yesterday) the price of natural gas futures–the NYMEX NGc1 futures price (based on gas selling at the Henry Hub)–went below $2 per MMBtu (or Mcf). It was the lowest price we’ve seen in nearly four years. In fact, as this post is being written, the latest price NGc1 (Tuesday morning) is trading at is $1.93. Is there any hope for prices to increase?
Nearly a year ago a lawsuit brought by greedy lawyers (ab)using a group of 21 children against the United States for not doing enough about mythical man-made global warming began in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (see 
Dear MDN Reader:
It’s been a while since we’ve updated our calendar of events page. We just have. The list below includes events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus, Utica and other Appalachian shales happening from now through the end of March. Be sure to check it out!