Big M-U Drillers Slash 2020 Spending a Collective 25%
For months MDN has brought you bits and pieces of news from individual drillers, detailing plans to cut back on spending for new drilling in the Marcellus/Utica in 2020. It’s not just happening in the M-U–it’s happening across the country. The experts at RBN Energy have a terrific new post that pulls information about major drillers scaling back into one place. They analyze spending by three different groups of drillers: oil-focused, diversified, and gas-focused drillers. In the third category, all but one of the gas-focused drillers have major operations in the M-U. The stats are sobering. As a collective group, M-U gas drillers have pledged to cut their 2020 budgets 25% from the already-lower spending that happened this year. Ouch.
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Left-wingers opposed to fossil fuels have apparently infiltrated the non-profit Allegheny Conference on Community Development (Pittsburgh region), and Marcellus/Utica driller CNX Resources, one of the Conference’s corporate members, is quitting because of it. It’s about time our industry stops supporting leftist causes that seek to end the use of fossil fuels.
Speaking of electric fracking, this past summer CNX Resources converted to using 100% electric frac fleets in its drilling operations (see 
Last year the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued administrative orders requiring three oil and gas companies–Alliance Petroleum Corporation (a subsidiary of Diversified Gas & Oil), XTO Energy, and CNX Resources–to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania (see 
Last Wednesday MDN brought you the news that CNX Resources had laid off some 50 employees, with rumors circulating that more layoffs were coming (see 
Quick: Which company which recently had a board and upper management shakeup and focuses exclusively on Marcellus/Utica drilling is the #1 natural gas producer in the United States? That’s right, EQT. In a list of the top 40 natgas producers in the U.S. (full list below), it’s striking to note that eight of the top 10 are focused exclusively or primarily on the M-U.
CNX Resources, formerly the CNX Gas division of CONSOL Energy, released its second quarter update yesterday. The big news is that during 2Q CNX drilled the longest new Marcellus well ever…at 19,609 feet! The company reports production jumped 10%, from 123 Bcfe last year to 135 Bcfe in 2Q19, and net income jumped 216% from $61 million last year to $193 million in 2Q19.
CNX Resources Corporation, formerly CONSOL Energy, released its “Corporate Responsibility Report” on Friday. CNX is headquartered in Pittsburgh and focuses totally on the Appalachian region. Corporate responsibility, sometimes called “Corporate social responsibility” (CSR), is an effort by a company to be socially accountable…to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. Companies like CNX aim to be conscious of the impacts they have on all aspects of society–including economic, social, and environmental. CNX (and others) want to leave the world a better place. How did CNX do in 2018?
A little over a year ago CNX Resources announced that the company had signed a long-term contract with Evolution Well Services to use Evolution’s 100% natural gas-fueled electric pressure pumping equipment (see 
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has just upheld a lower court opinion that allows shale drilling to happen *anywhere* in a township, so long as such drilling satisfies standards to protect public health, safety and welfare. This is the end of the road for a lawsuit funded by Big Green that began in 2015 in Westmoreland County, PA.
CNX Resources released its first quarter 2019 update yesterday, which shows the company lost $87 million, as opposed to making $527 million in profit in 1Q18. Even so, CEO Nicholas DeIuliis announced the company is upping its drilling budget from the previously announced $700 million to instead spend $885 million, largely to drill more “deep dry” Utica wells. Go big or go home!
Anti-fossil fuelers are once again riding their high horse “demanding” that the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County block any more shale drilling on county-owned property located near Beaver Run Reservoir. Even though CNX’s shale drilling has been going on there since 2011 with zero impacts on the reservoir and its water supply.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) on Saturday, Jan. 26, when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see