McClendon Nearly Triples Australian Shale Deal – 55M Acres!
Three weeks ago MDN told you that Aubrey McClendon and his American Energy Partners had made their first foray into international oil and gas drilling (see Aubrey McClendon Leases 21.5 MILLION Acres…in Australia?!). McClendon’s move was to lock up acreage under lease, which is how he typically operates, and figure out how to finance the drilling later. Once he got going, Aubrey just couldn’t help himself. He didn’t stop with 21.5 million acres as originally announced–he kept right on going and ended up cutting four deals Down Under for a total of an eye-popping 55 million acres! And he’s working on a deal for ANOTHER 10 million acres!! Here’s the details as we know them…
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Landowners in Pennsylvania have been upset with shenanigans by Chesapeake Energy in shorting them out of royalties for years. In 2013 a group of landowners in Bradford County, PA filed a lawsuit against Chesapeake over the royalty issue (see 
A couple of bits of news from Gulfport Energy, a driller focused primarily on the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio. In April, MDN reported that Gulfport had inked a deal with Paloma Partners III, a small energy & exploration company headquartered in Houston, to purchase 24,000 acres in Belmont and Jefferson counties (Ohio) for $12,500 per acre (see 
Sunoco Logistics Partners, which owns the Mariner series of pipelines (East, West and South), has just launched a new binding open season–time when drillers and other shippers can sign up for capacity–for an expansion of the planned Mariner East 2 project. In April 2014 MDN brought you the news that Sunoco LP had completed an open season for Mariner East 2 and had enough customers to move forward with the project (see 
In February MDN told you that Spanish oil giant Repsol was accelerating plans to build an LNG export terminal on the coast of Saint John, Newfoundland (see 
Basin Energy, which acts as a holding company to invest in (and run) other companies located in the Marcellus/Utica, is based in Bridgeport (Harrison County), WV. Basin’s first acquisition was ProActive Services, an operator of natural gas pipeline compressor stations and other related oilfield services. On Sept. 1, Basin closed a deal on their second subsidiary–the Jane Lew (Lewis County), WV-based Starett’s Well Service, a specialty roustabout services firm, focused on well site and midstream natural gas infrastructure in the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions…
In an example of yet another instance of our wonderful industry blessing the communities in which it works, Rice Energy has just completed an annual fundraising event which raised $600,000 which they donated to 36 different first responder organizations in Pennsylvania and Ohio at a ceremony last Friday, September 11th. The first responder organizations include local volunteer fire departments, emergency medical services, regional safety organizations and police departments. Kudos to Rice for being good corporate citizens. By the way, when was the last time you heard about a “green” group like Delaware Riverkeeper, Food & Water Watch, or the Sierra Club raising and donating money to anyone but themselves? Oil & gas industry = generous givers; Environmental wackos = selfish takers…
We occasionally bring you news of when senior management or members of the board of directors for an upstream (drillers) or midstream (pipelines) company either buy or sell shares of stock in their own company. It’s called “insider trading.” There are good reasons to do both–buy or sell. But let’s be honest, if you see upper management/board members repeatedly selling their shares of stock, it just doesn’t look good (see 
Below are upcoming events for the next three months (90 days). To see the full list of future events, visit this page: 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. Part of today’s lineup: Baltimore wackos; OH educators; PA budget; RI electric rates; shale tech game changer.