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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Aug 30-Sep 5

Last week only Pennsylvania issued new permits for new shale well drilling–14 of them scattered around the state. Both Ohio (for the seventh week in a row) and West Virginia did not issue new shale permits last week.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Jul 26-Aug 1

Last week both Pennsylvania and West Virginia received permits to drill new shale wells. Ohio was left out of the permit game for a second week in a row. PA received 19 new permits, with 9 going to Range Resources, 4 going to Seneca Resources, and a smattering of others. WV received 9 new permits, all of them in Tyler County and all but 2 given to Antero Resources.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Jun 14-20

Two of three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week, and boy did they open the floodgates! Pennsylvania issued 30 new permits, the majority of which are located on three well pads operated by EQT, Chesapeake Energy, and Range Resources. Ohio issued no new permits. After getting skunked for two weeks in a row, West Virginia issued 16 new permits–to just two drillers: Antero Resources and EQT. All of the WV permits were issued in the same county.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: May 31-Jun 6

Two of three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits, almost all of them in the dry gas northeastern part of the state. Ohio issued 11 new permits, in the center of the Utica play. West Virginia’s shale industry got skunked last week–no new permits. It’s been quite a while since that’s happened in WV.
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Which M-U Drillers are Likely Next Targets for Acquisition?

M&A, or mergers & acquisitions, is on everyone’s mind in the oil and gas industry. Particularly in the Marcellus/Utica region. EQT, under the leadership of Toby Rice, already the largest natural gas producer in the country, has been on the prowl. In the past eight months EQT has picked up all of Chevron’s M-U assets (see EQT Buys Chevron M-U Assets for $735M, Floats $350M in New Stock) and most recently, EQT picked up all of Alta Resources’ M-U assets (see EQT Buys Alta Res. PA Assets for $2.9B in “Transformative” Deal). EQT is still in the hunt (see Even After Chevron, EQT Still in Hunt to Buy CNX, Other Producers). Who’s next on the list to get acquired? We have some possibilities.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: May 10-16

All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received a sizable 14 new permits (after receiving 18 permits the previous week). The majority of those permits were for wells on three pads in northeastern PA. Ohio received 3 new permits last week all in one county (Greene) for one driller (Eclipse, now owned by Southwestern Energy) on one well pad. And West Virginia received a sizable 13 new permits with 9 of them split between two well pads for different drillers (Northeast Natural Energy and Tug Hill).
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: May 3-9

All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received a big 18 new permits (after receiving no new permits the previous week). More than half of those 18 permits were for wells on two pads in southwestern PA. Ohio received 7 new permits last week all in one county (Jefferson), split between Encino Energy and Ascent Resources. And West Virginia received 10 new permits with 7 of them for a single pad in Lewis County.
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Top 10 Shale Drillers in PA for 2020, by Number of Wells Drilled

The data crunchers at the Pittsburgh Business Times have been sifting through the data for 2020 and have composed a list of the “Largest Pennsylvania Shale Gas Drillers in 2020.” The PBT list ranks drillers by the number of wells drilled in PA for all time, including right up through the end of 2020. We resorted their list to reveal the number of wells “added” (drilled) in PA for 2020, to generate the following list of the top 10 drillers from 2020:
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Jan 25-29

All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received 22 new permits. Ohio received 2 new permits. And West Virginia received 8 new permits.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Jan 11-15

Two of three M-U drilling states received permits last week. Pennsylvania scored 14 permits to drill new shale wells. Ohio received no new permits for Utica wells. West Virginia received 5 new permits to drill new shale wells.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Oct. 12-16

What do you know? All three M-U states issued new shale drilling permits last week! That’s the first time in perhaps the last two months all three states issued new shale permits in the same week. Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits, Ohio issued 3 new permits, and West Virginia issued 8 new permits.
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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: Oct. 5-9

Only Pennsylvania issued permits to drill new shale wells last week in the Appalachian region. Neither Ohio nor West Virginia issued any new drilling permits from Oct. 5-9. In PA, some 20 permits were issued in both the northeast and southwest parts of the state.
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Cabot, Seneca, Chief Ramp Up Production for Atlantic Sunrise

According to a report from BTU Analytics, the top three shippers who will soon flow natural gas along Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (ASP)–Cabot Oil & Gas, Seneca Resources and Chief Oil & Gas–have “nearly doubled” their rig counts over the past few months leading up to the imminent startup of ASP. The pipeline is due to go online any day now–by the end of August (see Genscape Confirms Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Ready to Flow in August). Cabot has reserved 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of the 1.7 Bcf/d capacity of the new ASP. One third of Cabot’s 1 Bcf/d (350 million cubic feet per day, MMcf/d) will flow to Dominion’s Cove Point LNG export plant in Maryland–heading for Japan. Another 500 MMcf/d of Cabot’s gas will go to Washington Gas via ASP–meaning northeast PA Marcellus molecules will help heat, cool and power D.C. swamp dwellers. Joy. Here’s the great news that a single pipeline is stirring up a lot more drilling in northeastern PA…
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Well Pad Fire @ Chief O&G Site in Wyoming County, PA

Chief well pad fire – click for larger version

There was a fire at a natural gas well pad operated by Chief Oil & Gas in Wyoming County, PA over the weekend. We only have a few details from one news source (which seems odd). A call came in just after 4 am Saturday morning for a well pad in Lemon Township near Tunkhannock, PA. The cause of the fire is unknown. Nobody was hurt. And that’s about all we know. Perhaps an MDN reader in that area can shed more light? Here’s the very brief news item we spotted…
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Righteous Royalty Anger: PA Town Votes to Block Gas Production

angerResidents in Wilmot Township (Bradford County), PA are mad as hell over shorted royalty checks–and they aren’t taking it anymore. Yesterday Wilmot Township’s three supervisors passed a resolution demanding, “production be discontinued from wells where landowners are having their royalty checks diminished to nothing or nearly nothing.” That is, they want to block natural gas production from existing shale wells drilled in a town smack in the middle of one of the most-drilled places in Pennsylvania. We’ve long chronicled the fight between landowners and some (certainly not all) drillers who are screwing them out of royalty payments by claiming inflated post-production costs. The issue first came to prominence with claims by landowners signed with Chesapeake Energy, who claimed Chessy had cut a sweetheart deal with its former midstream company (Access Midstream) whereby Access bumped up its charges for piping gas which Chesapeake claimed as an expense and deducted from royalty checks, and then Access turned around and invested big money into the old mothership company (see Chesapeake Shafting Landowners out of Royalties Mess Gets Messier). A group of Bradford County landowners were among the first to sue Chesapeake over the scheme (see Bradford County, PA Landowners Sue Chesapeake over Royalties). Several bills have been offered over the past few years to correct the situation by legislating that landowners get a minimum 12.5% royalty for any gas produced, regardless of post-production costs. The most recent effort, which has come the closest to passing, is House Bill (HB) 1391. However, the Marcellus industry has steadfastly lobbied against it (see PA Landowners, Drillers Fight over HB 1391 Minimum Royalty Bill). Exasperated landowners in Wilmot have had enough and have taken the symbolic (but likely unenforceable) step of telling drillers to turn off their spigots until they’re ready to conform to a 1979 PA law that guarantees landowners a 12.5% minimum royalty for oil and gas production…
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