Pennsylvania's shale gas producers pulled more than three times as many permits to drill in January 2018 as they did a year ago as formerly idle companies from private equity-backed drillers to supermajors got back in the game.
Construction starts and pipeline openings in neighboring Ohio and West Virginia — including Energy Transfer Partners LP's Rover Pipeline LLC, EQT Midstream Partners LP's Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, and DTE Energy and Enbridge Inc.'s Nexus Gas Transmission LLC line — are luring drillers to the southwestern portion of the state while pipelines out of northeastern Pennsylvania remain stalled by courts and regulators.

Seventy-four percent of Pennsylvania's 244 January permits to drill were issued for locations in and around Pittsburgh, with EQT Corp. accounting for one-third of the state's total permitting, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. EQT's stated focus has been to drill up Washington and Greene counties south of Pittsburgh, but other operators are looking to restart their activities in the nearby counties, particularly Westmoreland, where supermajor Chevron Corp. pulled 21 permits in January, compared to 17 for all of 2017.
Private equity-backed producers also came off the bench, accounting for 61 total permits statewide, compared to 9 in January 2017. Apollo Global Management LLC's Apex Energy (PA) LLC pulled 14 permits to drill in Westmoreland County alongside Chevron, while EnCap Investments LLC's PennEnergy Resources LLC pulled 13 permits to drill in Beaver County, the site of Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC's $6 billion under-construction ethane cracker.
Southwestern Energy also pulled 21 permits in January, compared to six in the previous year, splitting its bets between the dry gas Marcellus Shale in two northeastern counties, Tioga and Susquehanna, and liquids-rich Washington County.
