Pennsylvania

Repsol SA is bolting on acreage in the Marcellus Shale after successfully bidding for 43,000 net acres in Northeast Pennsylvania in a bankruptcy auction. The Spanish energy company has agreed to pay $222 million, including $2 million in debt, for Rockdale Marcellus LLC’s assets in Tioga, Lycoming and Bradford counties, according to court documents. The…

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has cleared the way for Sunoco Pipeline LP to reroute part of its Mariner East natural gas liquids system near Marsh Creek Lake State Park in Chester County, PA. Construction was halted last August when drilling fluids and mud seeped into a part of the lake called Ranger Cove…

The 2021-2022 winter home heating season will likely be “significantly more expensive” than last year, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) recently reported. Citing a recent Energy Association of Pennsylvania (EAP) readiness report, PUC noted that home heating consumption is “likely to increase due to forecasts of colder weather, combined with a rise in natural…

Pennsylvania’s unconventional natural gas production grew at pre-pandemic rates through the first nine months of the year as prices and demand rebounded, according to the state’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO).  The IFO said unconventional production came in at 1.884 Tcf in 3Q2021, or 6.8% higher than the year-ago period, resembling the strong rates of the…

Vicinity Energy, which specializes in district energy systems for buildings and campuses, has filed a formal complaint with Pennsylvania regulators alleging that Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) has anti-competitive natural gas pricing. Headquartered in Boston, Vicinity has 19 district energy systems nationwide. District energy entails producing thermal energy at a central facility and transporting it to…

Seven years after it was announced, the PennEast Pipeline has been canceled following repeated regulatory and legal setbacks that have increasingly complicated other natural gas infrastructure projects across the country.  PennEast scrapped the project on Monday following what it said was “extensive evaluation and discussion” among its five member companies. The project battled landowners, environmental…

Increased activity in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale helped push the U.S. rig count nine units higher to 512 during the week ended Friday (Sept. 17), according to the latest data from Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). A 10-rig increase in oil-directed drilling offset a one-rig decline in natural gas-directed rigs in the United…

The U.S. natural gas rig count rose two units to finish at 101 during the week ended Friday, a week that also saw a notable uptick in drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), according to updated data from oilfield services provider Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). Drilling gains in the United States for the…

The impact fees paid by Pennsylvania’s unconventional natural gas producers in 2020 declined by $54 million year/year to about $146.3 million mainly because of lower natural gas prices, according to the state Public Utility Commision (PUC). Since the fees were enacted in 2012, operators have paid more than $2 billion to the PUC for distribution…