EOG Continues Testing Utica Wells, Tries 700-Foot Spacing
EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), owns nearly a half million acres of leases in the Ohio Utica. EOG calls its position the “Ohio Utica combo play” and now considers it one of the company’s “premium plays.” EOG concentrates on oil drilling in the Utica. As part of the company’s second quarter 2024 update, Jeff Leitzell, EOG’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) said the company added another 10,000 acres of leases to its Utica portfolio during 2Q (now at 445,000 acres). He also said the company is currently focusing on 225,000 acres that are in the “volatile oil window” of the Utica.
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Southwestern Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and Louisiana Haynesville, issued its second quarter update last week. You may recall that Southwestern agreed earlier this year to a deal to be acquired by and merged into Chesapeake Energy (see 
Every major public “upstream” (exploration and production) company invests in finding and developing reserves — except one, which happens to be the largest owner of wells in the country. Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. The company doesn’t do any of its own drilling from scratch. It buys wells drilled long ago (or, in some cases, still under development).
Writing for Hart Energy’s Oil and Gas Investor magazine, author Nissa Darbonne penned a fabulous overview of the Utica, bringing us the history of oil drilling in Ohio (in the 1800s) all the way up to the present day and Encino Energy’s dominance in oil drilling in the Utica. The article includes details about Encino and other companies, including Infinity Natural Resources and EOG Resources. Yesterday, we brought you details about the founding and current status of INR (see 
We have often marveled at the innovation in the oil and gas industry that happens each year. When we first began to write about shale drilling in 2009, a long horizontal lateral was perhaps a mile. Today, there are wells that go over four miles underground! In 2009, it might take two months for a rig to drill a new well. Today, it’s done in a few weeks. The rigs operating today are doing the work of three to four times the same number just a few years ago. It’s astonishing. The end result is that shale drilling has gotten “leaner and meaner” and has resulted in lowered costs.
A major change in ownership is coming for gas-fired power plants through the Marcellus/Utica region as well as New England. Quantum Capital Group announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cogentrix Energy, an independent power producer, from another investment firm (Carlyle) for $3 billion. The Cogentrix portfolio is comprised of 5.3 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power plants located throughout PJM (the M-U region), ERCOT (Texas), and ISO-NE (New England). M-U molecules feed most power plants in PJM and ISO-NE, ergo our molecules will feed the plants changing hands.
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