DEP and Diversified Gas & Oil Compromise on Plugging Old PA Wells
Diversified Gas & Oil has been on a mission to buy as many non-shale (conventional) oil and gas wells as it can in the Appalachian Basin. It owns over millions of acres and tens of thousands of wells–many of them located in Pennsylvania. Last fall the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) told Diversified it wants 1,000 of its nonproducing wells plugged in the next five years. Diversified countered it would like to plug 2,000 wells, but over the next 20 years. They ended up compromising.
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West Virginia has the right idea. Their legislature meets for 60 days total at the beginning of each new year, and then they’re pretty much done for the year. Go to Charleston, work hard, then leave and go back to your day job. Part-time legislators. Love it! The 2019 session is now done and dusted. In the closing days of the session, two bills to help the oil and gas industry got passed and now wait for Gov. Jim Justice to sign them. However, one very important bill for the industry did not pass.
Ever notice how predators like to hunt in packs? First the Chester County, PA District Attorney launched an ethically questionable “investigation” into “crimes” that may have been committed by building the Mariner East pipelines through his county (see
Two weeks ago MDN told you that New Jersey radicals had succeeded in scuttling a plan to convert an old coal-fired electric plant into using natural gas (see
Last September MDN told you that a new natgas-fired electric plant planned for the People’s Republic of Rhode Island in Burrillville was on life support, with antis reaching to pull the plug (see
Cue the dramatic music, cameras pan on the audience (audience members wearing freakish costumes). It’s time for the beginning of the Natural Gas Hunger Games. We have two contestants: New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Only one will survive and have access to barely enough natural gas to sustain life. Which will it be? Re-cue dramatic music with drums…
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: $500 million Pennsylvania nuclear rescue plan triggers fierce battle from rival power producers; NATIONAL: More than 60% of electric generating capacity installed in 2018 was fueled by natural gas; Optimism reigns for U.S. LNG as global supply fear wanes; Overt focus on U.S. shale decline rates misguided as output rise will continue; INTERNATIONAL: EU’s U.S. LNG imports soar as diplomatic talks continue; CERAWeek: Lukoil to release new natural gas strategy this autumn.
Did Williams just float an alternative/competitive pipeline to PennEast? Sure looks that way to us. On Friday Williams announced a binding open season to add 34 miles of looping pipeline next to existing Transco pipeline along with beefing up some of it’s compressor stations, in a bid to increase flows along the Transco from Luzerne County, PA (where PennEast would originate) to Mercer County, NJ (where PennEast would terminate).
As we keep pointing out, PTT Global Chemical, the company that says they want to build a $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH, keeps hinting that a “final investment decision” (FID) will come soon. Any day now. Just around the corner. They’ve been saying it for nearly two years.
Anti-fossil fuelers are once again riding their high horse “demanding” that the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County block any more shale drilling on county-owned property located near Beaver Run Reservoir. Even though CNX’s shale drilling has been going on there since 2011 with zero impacts on the reservoir and its water supply.
Last Friday MDN reported that Encino Energy CEO Hardy Murchison and COO Ray Walker (formerly of Range Resources) spoke at the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA) 72nd Annual Meeting in Columbus (see
In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Borough (see 
The latest edition of the MDN Weekly Digest is now ready. The digest is the meat and “essence” of each story for all posts appearing on the MDN website during the past week, collected in a single PDF document capable of being downloaded and printed. The Weekly Digest is available to paying subscribers only as part of your