Industrywide Issues

WV Oil & Gas Inspector Shortage Continues One Year After New Law

In March 2023, the West Virginia legislature passed House Bill 3110, giving the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) extra funds to hire more oil and gas well inspectors. At that time, the state had just ten inspectors to oversee not only all of the state’s 75,000 documented/known wells but also the state’s estimated 15,000…

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Maine Debates Democrat Bill to Limit New Natural Gas Customers

In May 2023, MDN brought readers the sad news that New York State has fallen and is now under a Communist dictatorship, with the freedom to choose energy sources now gone (see NY State has Fallen – Gas Stoves & Peaker Plants Banned in Budget). Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrat legislature unilaterally voted to…

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Black Gold: EOG Resources Drills Gushers in Ohio Utica

Perhaps our headline is slightly misleading. EOG is not the modern equivalent of Jed Clampett walking along and seeing crude bubbling up out of the ground (as in the fictional The Beverly Hillbillies show of the 1960s with the “Ballad of Jed Clampett” that says, “Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.”). What EOG and…

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PA Bill Mandates 30% of Electricity Come from Solar/Wind by 2030

Whenever the government mandates which energy sources residents can and cannot use, residents lose. The government’s micromanaging of energy is a prescription for high prices and supply chain failures (i.e., blackouts). Yet leftists like Pennsylvania Rep. Danielle Friel Otten (a radical Democrat from the Philadelphia area) never seem to learn. She introduced a bill, House…

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U.S. Southeast Requests More Marcellus/Utica Gas for Power Gen

Here’s the reality. People are moving out of states like New York due to high taxes and the stripping away of freedoms. Those of us living in NY now live in virtually a Communist state (and we’re not exaggerating). We can’t choose our energy sources. We can’t even use single-use plastic bags at the grocery…

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Dominion Tests Hydrogen in Appliances in Ohio Mini-Village

Behind the Dominion Energy building in Hudson, Ohio, sits what’s being dubbed Hydrogen Heights. It’s a mini-village. The sign at the entrance says, “Welcome to Hydrogen Heights.” Dominion is testing the blending of hydrogen and methane on gas appliances there. We have nothing against using hydrogen as an energy source, other than it will never…

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Dominion Buys Land for LNG Storage Facility in Person County, NC

Dominion Energy wants to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Person County, North Carolina, to enhance natural gas service reliability for residential and business customers in the growing region (see NC Residents Freak Out Over Proposed Dominion LNG Storage Tank). Dominion studied several potential sites and collected a boatload of data during…

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FERC Approves 32-Mile Cumberland Pipeline to TVA TN Power Plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see TVA Investing $1B to Build New Natgas-Fired Electric Plants). In late 2022, TVA recommended moving forward…

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XTO Begins to Plug 4 Shale Wells in Butler County Starting Today

XTO Energy began to drill four shale wells in Prospect Borough, Butler County, PA, in 2019. At least one of the wells was drilled down to a depth of nearly 2,000 feet. At some point since that time, XTO decided not to finish the wells and filed a request to plug the wells. A Pennsylvania…

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NYMEX Price Took Another Beating Friday, Closed at $2.52/MMBtu

Just one week ago, the price of natural gas, both the futures price and spot (physical) price, jumped — in some cases by four times in the space of just a couple of days (see NatGas Prices Make Huge Jump on Deep Freeze – Some M-U Prices 4X). And just as quickly as the price…

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Spire Connects Midwest Customers to M-U Molecules w/Pipe Deals

Spire Inc. is the owner and operator of the Spire STL Pipeline, a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline in Scott County, IL, to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. Spire STL has been up and running since 2019 (see Spire Pipeline Ready…

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DC Circuit Dismisses Case Against TGP Brought by Antero & EQT

Shippers, including drillers, utility companies, and others that buy and sell natural gas, are now free to buy and sell producer-certified gas (PCG) or responsibly sourced gas (RSG) at all pooling points across the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) system following a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit)….

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PA DEP Issues Final Guidance on Using HDD for Pipe Construction

Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is a form of trenchless drilling to install pipelines, like natural gas pipelines, underground without digging a big trench first. It uses directional drilling, similar to drilling a horizontal shale well, in order to install the pipeline. In 2018, Energy Transfer’s Sunoco Logisitics unit, which was building the Mariner East 2…

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PA House Member Calls Shapiro DEP “Weaponized” and a “Jobs Killer”

During a Pennsylvania House Republican Policy Committee hearing on strengthening rural communities held on Wednesday, Rep. Bud Cook (R-Waynesburg) didn’t hold back when assigning blame for why the state’s rural communities are losing population and experiencing economic growth. Cook said, “The overriding impediment is Governor Shapiro’s DEP,” referring to the Dept. of Environmental Protection. One…

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Group Claims Drill Cuttings for Grove City Landfill “Radioactive”

Here we go again with false allegations that drill cuttings from shale drillers are “radioactive.” In 2020, Tri-County Landfill Inc. submitted a permit application for the construction and operation of a municipal waste landfill in Liberty and Pine Townships, in Mercer County, PA. Judging by the reaction, the landfill will accept drill cuttings from Marcellus…

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