Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Crime | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County
Troopers Investigate Theft of Copper from Coterra Well Pad in NEPA
Pennsylvania State Police are investigating the vandalism and theft of copper from a Coterra Energy well pad on Stockholm Road in Rush Township in Susquehanna County, PA, sometime between July 8 and 14. The case appears to be your garden-variety case of lowlifes stealing copper to resell it (a “crime of opportunity”), and not some sort of statement by environmental wackos. But, one never knows with wackos…
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For the week of July 4-10, the three Marcellus/Utica states issued 37 permits to drill new shale wells. Pennsylvania led the way, as it typically does, by issuing 25 new permits. Three PA drillers tied with six permits each, all six (in each case) on the same pad: Olympus Energy in Allegheny County, Repsol in Bradford County, and Clean Energy Exploration in Tioga County. Ohio issued five new permits, with four going to Encino Energy for a single pad in Carroll County. West Virginia issued seven new permits, all of them to Antero Resources in Doddridge County but spread across three pads.
Wow! What a difference two years can make. At the dawn of the pandemic, the share price for publicly traded oil and gas stocks (in particular Marcellus/Utica drillers) was in the basement. With the pandemic now in the rearview mirror (we hope), and demand increasing for both oil and natural gas, the price of oil and gas has skyrocketed, and along with it, O&G companies are raking in the cash. How are M-U drillers using their newfound piles of cash to compensate investors?
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) is a special court set up in PA to hear appeals of decisions made by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In February 2021, a landowner (three people living at the same address) in Susquehanna County, PA, filed a lawsuit with the EHB against the DEP and Coterra Energy (formerly known as Cabot Oil & Gas) alleging Coterra’s drilling program nearby had led to polluting their water well. As of last week, the case was dismissed and the Pittsburgh attorney for the landowner (for the first time ever) was sanctioned by the EHB.
Each quarter NGI (
Daniel Sherwood takes a look at various metrics for Marcellus/Utica drillers in the latest edition of the TCF Upstream Monthly. Sherwood uses production trends, well efficiencies, and portfolio decline rates to compare and contrast M-U drillers. In the June issue (full copy below), Sherwood finds that CNX Resources and Chesapeake Energy are “leading,” Gulfport Energy and National Fuel Gas (i.e. Seneca Resources) are “underperforming,” and Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) is “improving.”
David Taylor, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, was one of the featured speakers at yesterday’s Think About Energy Briefing held in Berks County, PA. Taylor said if PA and federal legislators commit to a pro-growth agenda, PA could become the country’s No. 1 natural gas-producing state. Right now that honor belongs to Texas, which produces enormous amounts of associated natural gas. In 2021, #1 Texas produced 9.4 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) of natural gas, while #2 PA produced 7.7 Tcf. Taylor’s statement is not unthinkable. PA *could* one day eclipse TX natgas production.
We spotted a story on The Motley Fool investor’s website yesterday noting that several Marcellus/Utica publicly-traded drillers saw “double-digit” increases in their share price just yesterday, for a single day. The article highlights both Range Resources and Southwestern Energy. We started nosing around to see how the stock price for all of the big publicly-traded M-U drillers has performed this year, from the beginning of the year. It was an eye-opener. ALL of them are up from the beginning of the year. Most are up at least 75% in value since Jan. 1. A few have doubled in value, now up more than 100% since Jan. 1. We have the list below for how each one performed. Welcome to the bull market in oil and gas!
Coterra Energy, the new name for the merged Cabot Oil & Gas and Cimarex Energy, issued its first quarter 2022 update yesterday. Like other large Marcellus/Utica drillers, Coterra lost a bunch of money on derivatives (bad bets on the future price of oil and gas). However, unlike other large M-U drillers, Coterra still made money in 1Q22–a LOT of money. The company made $608 million in 1Q22 vs. making $126 million in 1Q21–nearly 5X as much. How? The price of natgas nearly doubled over the past year, that’s how. Coterra generated a massive $961 million in free cash flow, returning most of it to shareholders via dividends ($0.60 per share) and stock buybacks.