Court Approves Chesapeake Bankruptcy Plan to Dump $7B of Debt
Over the objections of a junior creditor group, a judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston said yesterday he will approve Chesapeake Energy’s bankruptcy plan to jettison $7 billion (out of $8.9 billion) worth of debt. Chesapeake will exit bankruptcy within the next 30 days and will continue to retain and drill on its Marcellus Shale assets in northeastern Pennsylvania.
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Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a virtual hearing to accept public comment on the topic of issuing water crossing and sediment/erosion permits for the PennEast Pipeline project. The hearing lasted over three hours with some 70+ people speaking (for up to 3 minutes each). Much to the consternation of anti-fossil fuelers, there was a strong showing of support for the project.
In a pair of announcements earlier this week, U.S. Well Services announced it has signed new long-term deals with both Range Resources and EQT to supply “electric fracking” services. We told you in February 2020 that Range had signed on with U.S. Well Services to continue using its electric fracking service (see 
In November 2019 the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania ruled that K. Petroleum Inc. (KPI), headquartered in Gahanna, OH, had breached a contract with Penneco Oil by not paying Penneco for gas flowing through KPI’s gathering pipeline system for wells owned and operated by Penneco. Yesterday the same court finally (after more than a year) completed calculations for what KPI owes Penneco. The tab comes to $511,292.15.
Drillers and pipeline companies often need the services of environmental and engineering consultants as they plan their projects. There are a number of companies in this space operating in the Marcellus/Utica. Investment firm Round Table Capital (RTC) Partners recently purchased three companies and is merging them to create “a market leader in the Environmental Consulting and Engineering Services market.” RTC launched this new venture with the acquisition of Hull & Associates, LLC in July of 2020 (the foundation of their new “platform”) and has further expanded Hull with the acquisitions of Duffield Associates, LLC and HSW Consulting, LLC in December.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Corning Natural Gas to be acquired by Argo Infrastructure Partners for $150 million; NATIONAL: EIA expects higher wholesale U.S. natural gas prices in 2021 and 2022; API looking for common ground to preserve U.S. energy dominance as Dems take control; The future of work in oil, gas and chemicals; Third of oil and gas workers faced pay cut in 2020 due to pandemic; INTERNATIONAL: The Biden administration and energy Part II – international relations; NFE to acquire Hygo Energy Transition and Golar LNG Partners in Combined $5 billion transaction; NFE to acquire power purchase agreements and build LNG-to-power project at Suape Port in Brazil.