11 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jul 3-9

New shale permits issued for Jul 3-9 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic decrease after posting a dramatic increase the week before. There were 11 new permits issued last week, way down from the 39 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included a scant 3 new permits in Pennsylvania, 3 new permits in…

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Hilcorp Well Leak in Columbiana OH Fixed, Evacuees Return Home

Yesterday MDN brought you the news that a third-party contractor “struck a well head” on a Hilcorp shale well pad in Columbiana County, Ohio, resulting in a leak that forced the evacuation of 450 people within a mile of the well site (see Columbiana County, OH Evacuates 450 After Hilcorp Gas Well Accident). Good news….

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Dennis Farm Preserved with Help from Coterra Energy

Dennis Farm Preserved with Help from Coterra Energy Rick Hiduk Managing Editor of EndlessMtnLifestyles.com … .. [Editor’s Note: The Dennis Farm is a marvelous example of how the oil and gas industry works with communities to make them truly sustainable in the very best sense of the word.] Coterra Energy has enjoyed a long relationship with

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Columbiana County, OH Evacuates 450 After Hilcorp Gas Well Accident

Roughly 450 people within a one-mile radius of a Hilcorp Energy well pad in Fairfield Township (Columbiana County, OH) were evacuated following a mishap at the pad. Hilcorp says a third-party contractor “struck a well head” on the pad around 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, causing natural gas to leak into the air. What does that mean,…

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PA DEP Forms Ctte to Dole Out $5M in Shell Cracker Shakedown Cash

Although Shell maintains flaring and accidental emissions from its new multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, have not violated state and federal air standards, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says they have–on numerous occasions. Shell didn’t argue the point, and in May, the company agreed to pay nearly $10 million in fines…

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39 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jun 26-Jul 2

New shale permits issued for Jun 26 – Jul 2 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic increase, thanks to a bump in Pennsylvania’s numbers. There were 39 new permits issued last week, way up from 11 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 30 new permits in Pennsylvania, 8 new permits in Ohio,…

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Tiny Group Protests Fracking Under Ohio’s Salt Fork State Park

In early June, shale drillers could, for the first time, begin to apply for permits to drill under (not on top of) Ohio state lands and state parks under newly formulated rules established by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission (see Ohio State Lands Now Open for O&G Leasing – Virtual Ribbon-Cutting)….

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Olympus Drops W Deer Well Pad Case After 2nd Pad is OK’d by Town

Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the…

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Tours Encino Utica Well Pad in Ohio

Yesterday U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is in Ohio for several days, toured Encino Energy’s Sanor Farm Well Pad near Damascus (Columbiana County), where Encino is drilling four Utica wells. McCarthy said this: “We just don’t want to be energy independent, we want to be dominant.” Love it! This is a home…

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11 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jun 19-25

New shale permits issued for Jun 19-25 in the Marcellus/Utica took another nosedive. There were 11 new permits issued last week, down from 21 the previous week. There’s just no denying that the trend in permits is generally down. Last week’s permit tally included 6 new permits in Pennsylvania, 2 new permits in Ohio (both…

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Fed Court Nixes Chesapeake Royalty Settlement with PA Landowners

In 2021, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief Judge for the Southern District of Texas, approved deals for Chesapeake Energy to pay $6.25 million to class members of the three royalty lawsuits brought by Pennsylvania landowners (roughly 15,000 class members) and another $2.9 million to the lawyers involved (see Texas Judge OKs Chesapeake Royalty…

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Epsilon Energy Gets New $35 Million Line of Credit from Frost Bank

Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon is the smallest publicly-traded company operating in the…

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West Deer Approves Olympus “Leto” Well Pad, Antis Pledge to Sue

Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the…

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Chesapeake CEO Says Upper Marcellus Wells Good, Not as Good as Lower

Earlier this week, the J.P. Morgan Energy, Power and Renewables Conference was held in New York City. The event featured a number of oil and gas luminaries. Among the speakers was Nick Dell’Osso, CEO of Chesapeake Energy. Chessy is a major driller in the northeastern Pennsylvania Marcellus region, along with a substantial presence in the…

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Injection Well Fight Continues in Western PA – Plum, Murrysville

MDN recently reported that after eight years, Pennsylvania General Energy gave up on trying to build an environmentally safe wastewater injection well in Grant Township, Indiana County, PA (see Bad Guys Win: PA General Energy to Plug Grant Twp Injection Well). Yes, the bad guys (CELDF) finally won. However, a proposed injection well project is…

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