Voters in Pennsylvania have the opportunity to elect a U.S. Senator in November who is a 100% supporter of the state’s Marcellus shale industry: Dave McCormick. Will they? Or will PA voters re-elect Bob Casey for a third term—someone who voted with Joe Biden and his Big Green (anti-shale) agenda 98.5% of the time? A…
We don’t think it’s overly melodramatic to say that Pennsylvania is standing on the edge of a cliff with the upcoming election in November. Yes, there’s the issue of which presidential candidate, Trump or The Cackler, will win PA and likely win the election. That is of critical importance. But so, too, is another race…
Last Thursday, Sept. 19, Pennsylvania State Rep. James Struzzi (R-Indiana) introduced House Bill (HB) 2573, which creates an Independent Energy Office headed by a new Energy Advocate with the authority to veto any regulation, policy or action of any state agency that “may harm energy reliability and affordability.” This bill appears to be completely different…
Two weeks ago, the national rig count, which counts all oil and gas rigs, added an astonishing eight rigs to the count after languishing for months — the biggest weekly gain in a year. As we told you, the Marcellus/Utica rig count from two weeks ago remained at 33, but that wasn’t the whole story (see…
Willie Phillips The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in late July vacating (nullifying) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of Transco’s Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project to bring gas from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and Maryland (see DC Circuit Libs Reverse FERC Approval of Transco Northeast Expansion). At a FERC open…
WhiteHawk Energy, headquartered in Philadelphia and owning mineral and royalty interests for over 1 million gross unit acres with over 3,400 producing horizontal shale wells between the Marcellus and the Haynesville, announced yesterday the acquisition of additional Marcellus Shale natural gas mineral and royalty assets for an undisclosed amount. The deal added 435,000 gross unit…
Yesterday, Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) leadership team members presented an update on the ARCH2 initiative and its current status. Among the big news from the event was that ARCH2 is looking “for up to three” new projects that would be built in southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or eastern Ohio as part of the…
Here’s a new concept for some (including us): Have you ever heard about the “heat content” of energy like natural gas? Heat content is the amount of heat energy available to be released by the transformation or use of a specified physical unit of an energy form, like how much heat a cubic foot of…
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Senate approved Senate Bill (SB) 1058 that would repeal the state’s participation in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an illegal carbon tax enacted via executive order by then Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019 (see Gov. Wolf Goes Bonkers: EO Destroying Gas-Fired Elec, Carbon Tax). Republican Senators voted in favor, and…
In yet another attempt to deflect attention away from Kamala Harris’ extreme position on fracking (she wanted to ban it completely everywhere in 2019), mainstream news continues to publish stories on other Pennsylvania energy topics. For example, yesterday, the New York Times published a story with this headline: “Big Energy Issue in Pennsylvania Is Low…
Hidden in last Friday’s weekly Baker Hughes official rig count is a big story happening in the Marcellus/Utica. From the 30,000-foot level, Friday’s latest rig count report appeared just fine. The national rig count, which counts all oil and gas rigs, added an astonishing eight rigs to the count after languishing for months — the…
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants to spend some of the $214+ million it’s receiving from the federal government’s Phase 1 & 2 program to plug orphaned conventional oil and gas wells on a research project to determine the potential health impacts of living near such wells. You may recall the flawed (totally…
Last Thursday (Sept. 12), the Pennsylvania State Senate Republican Policy Committee held a hearing in Pittsburgh to explore ways to simplify and make more effective PA’s expanded abandoned and orphan conventional oil and gas well plugging programs. As a reminder, abandoned wells are those with no production for at least 12 months in a row….
It’s really fascinating to watch this presidential election. Yes, we’ve promised to try and keep the politics to a minimum, but we must report on things we notice that have the potential to affect the shale drilling industry in general, and the Marcellus/Utica in particular. Here’s an issue we cannot keep silent about. As we’ve…
Once a month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Starting in June, the EIA axed its monthly Drilling Productivity Report that focused on shale plays and instead rolled it into the…