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…
Read More...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…
Read More...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,…
Read More...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…
Read More...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,…
Read More...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…
Read More...A new article by Gordon Tomb — a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based, free-market think tank, and senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia — has the intriguing title: “Are ‘green’ agendas carrying governors to political cliffs?” While the article focuses on recent actions by PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and Wyoming…
Read More...Diversified Energy Company, with major assets in the Appalachian region (including the Marcellus/Utica), announced yesterday the company had sold a majority stake in an unspecified number of Appalachian conventional oil and gas wells to an investment company called DP Lion Equity Holdco, for $200 million. We could not find who owns DP Lion. The company…
Read More...The venerable Baker Hughes U.S. rig count turned in its totals a day early this week. Likely because workers were heading for the exits early (we can’t blame them). The overall rig count lost ground again last week, as it has for the past couple of weeks. The count went from 623 active rigs last…
Read More...In September, MDN told you about a non-profit organization called Project InnerSpace, which has been reaching out to public officials, academics, and oil and gas interests in Pennsylvania, pitching a transition from fossil fuel extraction to geothermal energy using the same workers and potentially, the same infrastructure (see Siren Song of Geothermal Calls to PA…
Read More...In early November, CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis signed a voluntary deal with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to expand drilling setbacks and several other regulatory steps not mandated for shale drillers under PA law (see CNX Signs Deal with PA Gov. to Increase Setbacks, Other Changes). Gov. Shapiro’s office yesterday blew the trumpet to announce…
Read More...“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…” Whoops. Not that tune! “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…” Not that one either! “This is my grown-up Christmas list…” Yeah, that tune fits the best. We’re talking about a “grown-up Christmas list” from the Pennsylvania natural gas industry…
Read More...This is one of those little gems we delight in unearthing for MDN readers — especially for our landowner/rights owner readers. Researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Pittsburgh assembled a dataset of lease deals used in the Pennsylvania Marcellus (some 60,000 of them!) and analyzed the leases for compensation and clauses…
Read More...EPA Administrator Michael Regan used a considerable amount of fossil energy and emitted billows of carbon dioxide to jet over to Dubai to participate in the COP28 confab. At that event, Regan released his agency’s latest attempt to illegally regulate the oil and gas industry (see Bidenistas Unleash Hellscape of U.S. Methane Regs at COP28)….
Read More...Pennsylvania assesses an impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) on shale drillers, raising revenues that are paid to local municipalities and to the black hole of Harrisburg politicians. Yesterday, the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) issued an estimate for how much the impact tax will raise this year, to be distributed next year….
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