Pennsylvania

$550,000 PIPE Grant for Natural Gas Pipe to Former Lycoming Mall

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the dozens of PIPE grant projects awarded over the years (see our PIPE stories here)….

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Olympus, CNX Still Blocked from Using Reservoir Water for Fracking

In November, the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) issued a water conservation warning asking more than 56,000 MAWC customers to conserve water due to the lack of rainfall and the low level of the Beaver Run Reservoir (see Olympus, CNX Blocked from Using Reservoir Water for Fracking). MAWC provides water to more than 122,000…

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Battleground State Energy Survey Shows Americans Reject Carbon Tax

The American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity recently sponsored a survey of 1,600 likely voters equally divided among eight “battleground” states (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio) conducted by MWR Strategies in December 2023. The total sample margin of error is 2.45%. The survey results confirm that there has…

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Equitrans Still Needs to Tidy Up at Rager Mountain Gas Leak Site

In November 2022, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania), began to leak. Equitrans is the owner/operator of Rager Mountain. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas…

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LS Power Buying NatGas-Fired Power Plant in Gettysburg, PA

LS Power, headquartered in New York City, has developed or acquired 47,000 MW of power generation, including utility-scale solar, wind, hydro, battery energy storage, and natural gas-fired facilities. We’ve previously mentioned LS Power in a number of MDN articles (see our LS articles here). The company issued a press release yesterday to announce it has…

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Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Loses 2 @ 619, M-U Even @ 40

The Baker Hughes rig count lost ground again last week, as it has in four of the last five weeks. The count went from 621 active rigs two weeks ago to 619 last week. The Marcellus/Utica count was steady at 40 active rigs; however, the mix changed. Pennsylvania kept 19 active rigs as in previous…

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18 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 1-7

There were 18 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the first full week of 2024 (Jan. 1-7), versus 24 permits issued for the final two weeks of last year (Dec. 18-31). Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits last week. Ohio issued just 1 — which was to drill a Marcellus (not a Utica)…

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Olympus Makes the Case for 6-Unit Compressor Station in Penn Twp

Hyperion Midstream LLC, a subsidiary of Olympus Energy, is seeking a special exception to a Penn Township (Westmoreland County) zoning ordinance so it can build a six-generator compressor station along Wilderness Road over the next four years. Last night, Hyperion representatives and witnesses testified at a township zoning hearing in favor of the plan. Those…

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PA EHB Allows Moot Challenge to Already Drilled & Fracked Wells

For years, anti-fossil fuel haters have made the same false claims: Drilling and fracking will destroy the environment, contaminate your water, make you sick, and create death and destruction everywhere it’s tried. Then, a responsible driller, like Olympus Energy, comes along and drills wells not far from the lefties in Pittsburgh, and none of those…

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PA’s Natural Gas Star Beginning to Fade from Lack of Pipelines

It’s hard to underestimate the influence and role of Pennsylvania on the world’s energy sector, especially over the past 19 years with the rise of the Marcellus Shale. However, advocates for fossil energy (like the American Petroleum Institute) are expressing concerns that PA’s dominant role may change to one with far less influence. Why? Lack…

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Interim PA DEP Sec. Updates Citizens Advisory Council on Priorities

In October, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Rich Negrin suddenly resigned after being on the job for less than a year (see PA DEP Sec. Negrin Resigning Dec. 8 – On Medical Leave Until Then). In his place, Jessica Shirley, who was named Deputy Secretary of the DEP earlier last year,…

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PA Coalition Prefers Energy Poverty Over Real Climate Solutions

Have you ever been around the kind of irritating person who says “No!” to everything? Someone who is perennially unhappy and loves to share that unhappiness with everyone around him or her? Someone who, when you offer valid solution after valid solution to a given “problem,” the person shoots each one down, unwilling to try…

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The Deep Divide on Pa. Environmental Policy – Senate vs. House

Republicans control the Senate in Pennsylvania. Until last year, Republicans also controlled the House. Now, leftist Democrats control the PA House by a single seat. As narrow as the numbers are, the philosophical divide between the two parties and the two chambers with respect to environmental issues is a chasm. Republicans like Sen. Gene Yaw,…

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U.S. O&G Jobs Slight Decline in December, but Up Overall in 2023

The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, located in Houston, TX, is a national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector, representing more than 650,000 U.S. jobs in the technology-driven energy value chain. The Energy Workforce Council works to advance member policy priorities and empower the energy workforce of the future. The Council…

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24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Dec 18 – 31

We are catching up on permits issued…for the last two weeks of December. Normally we cover permits issued for a single week. This report covers permits issued for the two weeks covering Dec. 18 – 31. Perhaps it’s a good thing we’re reporting on two weeks as Ohio’s ODNR seems to have taken the last…

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