2 PA Bills Would Roll Back Conventional Drilling Regs to 1984
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has been obstinate in demanding onerous new drilling rules for the conventional, as well as unconventional (shale) drilling industry since he took office. Reworked drilling rules for both conventional and shale drillers were done and ready to go under previous Gov. Tom Corbett. Then Corbett lost to Wolf, and Wolf demanded changes to the common sense rules everyone had already agreed to (see New Draft Drilling Regulations in PA: Wastewater Impoundments Out). Wolf’s changes for conventional drillers threatened to run PA’s traditional, small conventional drillers out of business by applying the same regulations to them that will apply to shale drillers. As Wolf’s onerous changes were headed for certain defeat in the legislature last year, he changed gears and agreed to put off changes for conventional drilling until this year (see PA DEP Plans Redo of Chapter 78 Conventional Well Regs in 2018). It’s this year, and instead of letting Wolf advance his onerous drilling plans for conventional drillers, PA State Sen. Scott Hutchinson (R-Venango) and State Rep. Martin Causer (R-Forest) on Monday introduced essentially the same bill in their respective chambers, bills that will remove conventional drilling from compliance with the 2012 Act 13 bill and “turn back the clock,” re-adopting regulations for conventional drillers used in the Oil and Gas Act of 1984…
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The shale industry produces a lot of water. You read that right. The industry not only *uses* a lot of water (roughly 5 million gallons per well for fracking), it also *produces* a lot of water. Some 80% of the water used in fracking never comes back out of the ground–it seeps into the ground and stays there. However, there is naturally occurring water from the depths–from far below what we think of as “the water table” that sits a few hundred feet down. When you drill a hole in the ground a mile, or two miles down–there’s water down there too. It’s super-salty (full of minerals), which is why it’s called brine. In the industry the phrase used to describe this naturally occurring water is produced water. And it comes out long after fracking is over and done. It comes out for years–decades even. Drillers have to dispose of it somehow. The preferred method is to recycle it and use it for other drilling. When brine is recycled and the minerals (i.e. salt) is removed, the salt can be put to good uses, like spreading it on roads during the winter. Antis paint a scary picture of environmental holocaust in using “fracked salt”–but it’s nonsense. A bipartisan bill in Ohio is getting fresh attention, a bill that will allow for the sale of “fracked” brine for deicing roads in the Buckeye State during winter…
In August 2016, Millennium Pipeline, which stretches from Corning, NY to just outside New York City, filed an application for what it calls its Eastern System Upgrade (see 
Tom Gellrich, founder of Top Line Analytics–a consultancy focusing on downstream shale gas development like ethane crackers–spoke Wednesday at Kallanish Energy’s “Crackers, Storage & Pipelines 2018” event at Southpointe. He had some interesting things to say. Among them: The Marcellus/Utica region has enough ethane to easily support up to eight ethane cracker plants–plants the size of the massive Shell cracker being built now in Monaca (Beaver County), PA. So far only Shell has pulled the trigger and begun to build such a plant. PTT Global Chemical, based in Thailand, is actively considering (and likely) to build a second regional cracker plant in Belmont County. So the multi-billion question is this: Why aren’t more companies building crackers in our region, given the abundance of cheap ethane? Gellrich had some thoughts on that…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Phila. Energy Solutions likely to resolve objections to bankruptcy plan; judge dismisses hokey claims that energy producers suppressed “climate science”; Chevron prepares to educate judge on climate science; how the shale boom has kept the U.S. economy afloat; U.S. net petroleum imports heading to zero; tsunamis of innovation are shaking the energy industry; Egypt-the next natgas hotspot?; and more!
If the so-called “tree sitters” in Jefferson National Forest who are trying to block tree cutting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) get themselves hurt, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Robert Irons will be the one to blame. Well actually, the protesters can blame themselves (they’re idiots), but Irons is certainly complicit. On Tuesday Judge Irons refused to grant MVP a court order to remove the radical protesters. Apparently they are 7 feet outside of the right of way zone for tree felling. Have you ever cut a big tree down? Trees don’t care if they fall 7 feet this way or 7 feet that way when they fall. MVP wants to ensure the protesters don’t get hurt, and wants them gone before they cut trees near them. But because the radicals technically, according to the judge, are not in the actual right of way, they can stay up the trees where they’ve been for the past 25+ days. There are two suspended tree houses (platforms), held in the trees with ropes. Up to seven people have been living in the two magic tree houses, eating, breathing and defecating up in the trees (harming the environment they profess to be protecting). MVP technically has a deadline of March 31 to fell trees along the path of the pipeline. We suspect MVP has a Plan B for this segment where the loons have perched themselves up a tree. We predict sitting up a tree will get old sooner or later–and MVP can wait them out…
Two Pennsylvania Senate committees–the Environmental Resources and Energy and the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure committees–held a joint hearing on Tuesday supposedly on the topic of “pipeline safety”–but instead the hearing turned into a bash Sunoco Logisitcs and the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline hearing. A variety of witnesses testified. Unfortunately, State Sen. Gene Yaw (RINO from Lycoming County), chairman of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, didn’t invite Sunoco to testify, so it was a one-way bash fest. Sunoco was not allowed to respond. Thanks Gene. It wasn’t a court hearing, so we can’t call it a kangaroo court. Perhaps we can call it a kangaroo Senate hearing? While the discourse in the hearing was mostly civil (although it was nonstop bashing of Sunoco), a group of rabble rousers nearby was not. A group of 10-15 (depending on the news source) marched on Gov. Tom Wolf’s office. They were there to serve Wolf with a mock “Notice of Probable Violation and Summons,” which the malcontents say requires Wolf to appear in Chester County before families impacted by construction of ME2. The small mob was met with locked doors and Capitol Police who turned them away…
Sunoco Logistics Partners (aka Energy Transfer Parnters) has had its challenges in constructing the twin Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipelines across Pennsylvania. Earlier this month MDN told you that underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work in Chester County had led to a third sinkhole developing in that area (see 
Let’s be honest. Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia compete against each other, fiercely, to attract business to their respective states. However, in 2015 the three states agreed to lay aside their competitive natures when it comes to shale and cooperate (pool resources) for things like marketing and promotion, workforce development, transportation/infrastructure and research (see 
There’s a number of threads to the ongoing saga of Constitution Pipeline, a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY to move Marcellus gas into New York State and from there, into New England. The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused to grant the pipeline necessary federal stream crossing permits, blocking construction, in April 2016 (see