Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Drops 4 @ 600, M-U Drops 3 @ 37

Yeah, the bottom pretty much fell out of the rig count last week, both nationally and for the Marcellus/Utica region. We’re hitting new lows with both counts. For the M-U, Pennsylvania stayed the same with 21 active rigs, but Ohio lost one rig, and West Virginia lost two rigs last week, for a net loss…

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OH Supreme Court Reverses “Drilled Too Deep” Decision TERA v Rice

Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that owns the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the…

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EQT Merger With Equitrans Clears Important Federal Antitrust Hurdle

The merger of EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream into a single company took one giant leap forward on Wednesday when the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Act waiting period expired. In November 2018, under intense pressure from activist investors, EQT split itself into two companies: EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream (see It’s Here! EQT Midstream Division Now…

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PA Senate Candidate David McCormick Gets a Rig Tour – “Unbelievable”

In case you weren’t aware, there’s an important political race happening in Pennsylvania for the U.S. Senate. In fact, the race’s outcome will likely determine whether or not the Senate remains hostage to radical Democrat control or flips to common sense Republican control. The Democrat running for the seat is Bob Casey, an entrenched D.C….

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Mainstream Media 5 Years Late Reporting Lithium-from-Shale Story

We’ve had more than a few MDN readers pass along links from recent mainstream media stories about the treasure trove of lithium available “beneath Pennsylvania” in the state’s brine (shale wastewater) production. Which makes us a little bit crazy and amuses us at the same time because we’ve been reporting on this story since 2019!…

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Extremist Democrats Intro Gov. Shapiro’s Energy Plan with 4 Bills

In March, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program (see PA Gov. Shapiro Proposes Own Version of Marcellus-Killing Carbon…

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Pretend Evangelical Christians Want PA to Dump Fossil Energy

The environmental left is now attempting to co-opt the term “Evangelical Christian,” defined as protestants who tend to be pro-life and conservative in their political views. We’re here to expose them for who they really are. We’re talking about the so-called Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) that keeps trying to pressure Pennsylvania to adopt unreliable renewable…

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Enbridge Pre-Selling Peak Storage at Dawn Hub for 2025

Canadian-based Enbridge operates, among many other assets, the Dawn Hub in the Canadian province of Ontario. Located in southwestern Ontario, Dawn, with 288 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of gas storage, provides shippers with direct access to North America’s major supply basins — including the Utica and the Marcellus. The Dawn Hub is connected to a…

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NGSA Summer Outlook: Low Natural Gas Prices This Summer

U.S. natural gas demand will remain at record high levels this summer, driven by power market consumption and exports, but prices will decline from last year due to a production increase and higher storage levels, according to the annual Summer Outlook report published yesterday by the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA). According to NGSA, “summer”…

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Cabot O&G (Now Coterra Energy) Settles Lawsuit for Securities Fraud

In October 2020, a law firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Cabot Oil & Gas shareholders against Cabot (now Coterra Energy), claiming the company “had inadequate environmental controls and procedures and/or failed to properly mitigate known issues related to those controls and procedures,” and that the company “failed to fix faulty gas wells…

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Cecil Twp Board Considers Revising Drilling Setbacks to 1,500 Feet

About 150 people packed a hearing of the Cecil Township (Washington County), PA, Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday to express their concerns about Range Resources’ fracking activities near their homes. Some attendees were paid activists (holding signs), but judging from media reports, many were just local residents. The Board held a hearing to consider modifications…

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Radicals Keep Pressure on NY Gov. Hochul to Block Iroquois Upgrade

The odious and disgusting Food & Water Watch (FWW) organization (anti-fossil fuel fanatics) has taken point on the left’s effort to block Iroquois Gas Transmission’s plan to upgrade compressor stations in the Empire State. Iroquois’ Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut…

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Post-Gazette Proposes Compromise on Who Pays to Plug Old Wells

Two days ago, MDN brought you an extensive article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that delves into the thorny issue of who should pay to plug some of the 200,000+ orphaned and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania (see The Thorny Issue of PA’s Old Conv. Wells & Who Pays to Plug Them). In some cases, the owners…

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PJM Electric Grid Warns Biden EPA re Final Reg on Gas-Fired Plants

The Bidenistas at the EPA attacked coal and gas-fired power plants in April, threatening to destabilize the existing electric power grid with new regulations (see EPA Rolls Out Final Regs Attacking Coal & Gas-Fired Power). Using 1,020 pages of new regulations, which will go into effect this year, all coal-fired plants that are slated to…

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