Industrywide Issues

PA Manufacturers Release Study Supporting Philly LNG Export Plan

Last week, MDN told you about the third and final public hearing held by the Pennsylvania House Philadelphia LNG Natural Gas Export Task Force (see Chester Residents Oppose Philly LNG Export Project at Final Hearing). The Task Force was established by law in early 2022 to study how to establish Philadelphia LNG exports to international…

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Hurricane Idalia Reduces Feed Gas to Georgia’s Elba Island LNG

Hurricane Idalia made landfall in the “big bend” region of Florida on the morning of Aug. 30 as a Category 3 storm, then lost speed as it crossed the state, downgrading to a Category 1 as it pushed into Georgia, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers and reducing power and natural gas…

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Harrisburg Swamp Dwellers Appointed to PA PUC by Gov. Shapiro

A couple of major changes to alert you to at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC is the public utility commission in Pennsylvania. The PUC has five commissioners appointed by the Governor with the consent of the state Senate. The PUC oversees public utility and services operations in the Commonwealth, in sectors including…

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Uncontrolled Release of Gas at Repsol Well in Bradford County, PA

A Repsol well located on a pad in Troy (Bradford County), PA, experienced uncontrolled natural gas venting. The situation began around 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27. It continued to vent “sporadically” until about 2:30 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 28. Repsol called the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to report the situation at 2:02 a.m….

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7 New Pipeline Projects Planned to Handle 2 Bcf/d from MVP

Last week, MDN brought you information about what happens next when (not if) the mighty 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline gets completed (see MVP Prompts New Pipe Expansions for Hungry Downstream Customers). MVP is built to flow 2 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus/Utica gas southward. The problem is there isn’t (yet) enough takeaway…

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Analysts Say MVP Southgate Pipe in NC Not Likely to Get Built

Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, proposed to extend the pipeline by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The extension is called MVP Southgate. In typical fashion, Democrats oppose it…

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PA Gov. Shapiro Plans to Block New Shale Drilling in 20% of State

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration is once again signaling its intent to block shale drilling in certain regions of the state by using a new “environmental justice” (it’s racist to drill there) policy. We told you about Shapiro’s intent two weeks ago when the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued new so-called environmental justice…

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Epsilon Energy Reports New Drilling on Acreage in PA Marcellus

Is there now a truce in the long-running dispute between Epsilon Energy and Chesapeake Energy over drilling new wells in Susquehanna County, PA? Perhaps! Yesterday, Epsilon, a small publicly-traded energy company that joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, with the other company doing the drilling, announced that “the operator…

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Murrysville, PA, Approves Ordinance Allowing Injection Wells

At the regular Murrysville, PA (Westmoreland County) town council meeting on August 16, the council voted to adopt Ordinance No. 1075-23, an ordinance amending the town code to add a provision allowing wastewater injection wells in the town. The new ordinance limits injection wells to properties zoned for business use. The prospective site must be…

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Serious Flaws Revealed in Pitt’s So-Called Fracking/Cancer Studies

Two weeks ago, Pittsburgh University (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see Pitt Releases Fake Research, Claims PA Fracking Linked to Kid Cancer). Our position from the beginning, when Pitt received $2.5…

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WVU Cutting Budget, Plans to Trim Petroleum & NatGas Engr Program

West Virginia University (WVU), the Mountain State’s public research university, is located in Morgantown, WV. Enrollment at all of WVU’s campuses at one point almost touched 30,000 students. Big university–important university. WVU has a major Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program as part of the school’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources….

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Analyst Says Peak Oil & Gas Demand is Fantasy, Around for Decades

The left is slowly, begrudgingly, but inevitably coming to the conclusion that so-called peak oil demand–the theory that other forms of energy will replace oil and that oil demand will diminish–is “pure fantasy.” Axios, founded by former POLITICO “journalists” and catering to Gen Z lefties with attention deficit disorder from growing up playing video games…

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Ohio Utica Shale Production 2Q23 – Top Wells, Drillers & Counties

The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) released production numbers for the second quarter of 2023 late last week, and nobody noticed…except MDN (thanks to a tip from a good friend). ODNR no longer issues a press release to summarize the results as they once did. We’ve got the full spreadsheet with oil and gas…

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Out-of-State MVP Protester Delays Drilling 7 Hrs – Arrested, Removed

An out-of-state, paid protester locked herself to a piece of excavating equipment used to build the Mountain Valley Pipeline early Saturday morning in Montgomery County, Va. She used a sleeping dragon device (arms in a PVC pipe wrapped in duct tape). She was there for seven hours, causing a delay. Virginia State Troopers and Montgomery…

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