SRBC Report: No Impact from Drilling on PA Watersheds, State Land

Susquehanna River Basin The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) established the Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network (RWQMN) in January 2010 in response to natural gas drilling activities in the basin. Each year the SRBC issues an update/report on findings from the previous year. The report for 2018 was just released and it found, as all

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PA Dems, RINOs Pressure Gov Wolf to Attack Shale with Methane Regs

Dems & RINOs want to strangle shale with methane rules A group of mostly Democrats, with three RINOs (Republican in Name Only) thrown in to earn the laughable label of “bipartisan,” gathered in Harrisburg, PA at the Capitol earlier this week to turn up the pressure on PA’s liberal Gov. Wolf on the issue of

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PA Invests $2.8M to Extend NatGas Pipeline Service in 3 Counties

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natgas pipelines to connect homes and businesses in rural parts of the state to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the more-than-a-dozen (so far) PIPE grant projects in the past (see our PIPE stories here). Another

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Most Important Court Case in PA Shale History Heads to Supremes

This Friday Thursday the justices sitting on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear what we believe is the most important shale gas court case in the history of the state: Briggs v Southwestern Energy. We consider this case to be an existential threat to the future of shale gas drilling in PA should the decision

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New Drilling Permits in PA “Plummet” in July & August

According to analysis by S&P Global Platts, new drilling permits for shale wells across Pennsylvania have “plummeted” over the past few months–down 14% in July and down 23% in August from the same months a year ago. But, does comparing two months from this year against last year for the entire state really tell the

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PA Landowners Feel Pinch of Low NatGas Prices in Royalty Checks

Like it or not, landowners are joined at the hip with the shale drillers who produce the natural gas from their land. When “the price” (which is actually a lot of different prices, depending on geography) of natural gas is high, everyone is in tall cotton. But when the price tanks, as it has over

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Philly Dem Senator Loses Bid to Shut Down ME Pipelines

PA State Senator Andy Dinniman In April 2018, a Chester County, PA (Philadelphia area) Democrat State Senator by the name of Andy Dinniman (who we think looks like Tony Soprano) filed a formal, legal complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), asking the PUC to shut down and keep closed all of the Mariner

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PA Gas-Fired Electric Going from 30% to 45% of Capacity Next 3 Yrs

click for larger version Believe it or not, dry and sterile reports from government agencies, like the “Electric Power Outlook for Pennsylvania” issued by the state Public Utility Commission, can be exciting! The latest edition of the EPO report predicts natural gas-fired electric generation in PA will go from a current 30% of all electricity

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Another $319K in Fines Levied on Mariner East 2 Pipeline in PA

Sunoco Pipeline, a division/part of Energy Transfer, has just been fined (again) for work related to the construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project. This time around Sunoco got two fines: One for problems with their work in 2018, to the tune of $240,840, and one for work done back in 2017, to the

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Penn State: PA Oil & Gas Drilling Contaminates 0% of Water Wells

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University, using a new testing protocol that uses existing, affordable water chemistry tests, have tested 20,751 water well samples from wells located near high levels of both conventional and shale oil and gas drilling in PA. The tests show whether or not existing/naturally occurring methane is in the water well, or

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CNX Resources Lays Off 10% of Total Workforce – More Cuts Coming?

CNX Resources has just laid off (i.e. fired) roughly 50 employees company-wide, most of them at company headquarters in Canonsburg. But not all. We heard from an MDN trust source who said at least nine workers got their walking papers in West Virginia. Given the company employs about 500 people, 50 fired represents 10% of

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Fed Court Shoots Down Riverkeeper’s Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Case

THE Delaware Riverkeeper has lost yet another frivolous lawsuit that attempted to overturn Williams’ now long-completed Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. We’ve lost count of how many lawsuits Riverkeeper (and other anti groups) have lost against Atlantic Sunrise. Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection’s decision

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PA Playbook for Closed Coal Plant Sites: Replace w/NatGas, Petchem

Pennsylvania state officials in the Gov. Tom Wolf administration (yes, lib Dem Tom Wolf) are drawing up plans, a “playbook,” for how to redevelop the increasing number of coal-fired electric generating plants that are closing in the state. Most of those plans boil down to this: redevelop those sites as natural gas-fired electric plants and/or

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DC Court Upholds FERC Authority in Approving Atlantic Sunrise Pipe

In March 2017, radical green groups, including the Sierra Club, Lancaster Against Pipelines, Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, Allegheny Defense Project, Clean Air Council, Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County, and Heartwood, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in an attempt to block construction of the $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise

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DEP Permits for NWPA FM100 Pipeline – Marcellus Gas to Transco

In March we told you about National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) FM100 Project in northwestern Pennsylvania that will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see NFG FM100 Pipe Project in NW PA to Feed

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