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PA’s 5 Biggest Shale Drillers Back in the Game, Permits Soar in June
According to an analysis done by S&P Global Market Intelligence, the five largest drillers in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale resumed their drilling in June in a big way. S&P’s analysis shows those five drillers were responsible for 51% of the new drilling permits issued last month, up from 28% of new permits issued in May. Perhaps we know why. The price of natgas at regional hubs in PA rocketed over the past month. At the Leidy Hub in the northeast’s dry gas window (centered on Susquehanna County, PA), cash prices went from a low of 93.7 cents/MMBtu on May 3 to $3.07/MMBtu at the end of June.
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An analyst writing on the Seeking Alpha investors website confirms our concerns over the potential merger between Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas and Permian driller Cimarex Energy (see 
More details have emerged from what has to be one of the oddest combinations in recent memory–the merger of Permian driller Cimarex Energy with Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas (see 
All three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits, all but one of them for the same well pad in Greene County. Ohio issued 3 new permits, two on a single pad in Monroe County. And West Virginia issued just 1 new permit last week–to a company we had not previously heard of.
Each quarter NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) runs the numbers and publishes a list of the 25 top natural gas marketers in the U.S. These are not necessarily the top 25 producers of natural gas (although in some cases they are), but the top 25 sellers (vendors, jobbers) of natural gas. NGI’s latest quarterly report shows overall the biggest sellers of natgas “lost ground” once again in 1Q21, which continues a two-year trend of year over year declines in the amount of gas sold.
Analysts at S&P Global Platts continue to track the performance of some of the country’s biggest shale gas drillers (most of them located in the Marcellus/Utica). S&P tracks production, spending, and the performance of their stock price. The price of natural gas has gone up over the past three months and along with it, the stock price for most (not all) shale gas drillers. For example, the share price for Range Resources has soared, gaining 42% in value over the last 90 days.
RBN Energy is a fountain of great information about the oil and gas sector. Headed by industry icon Rusty Braziel, RBN tracks and reports on a number of O&G companies. One of the best features of their information service is tracking the performance of three groups of publicly-traded O&G companies: Oil-Weighted E&Ps, Diversified E&Ps, and Gas-Weighted E&Ps. That last group, the gas-focused companies, is a list of 10 E&Ps. Only two of the ten don’t have any operations in the Marcellus/Utica–all the rest do. RBN has just published a post about the financial performance in 1Q21 for all three groups. The numbers are very encouraging.
Last week we shared the bombshell news that Cabot Oil & Gas, one of the premier drillers in the Marcellus, is merging with (being acquired by) Permian driller Cimarex Energy (see 
Yesterday we shared the devastating (for us) news that Cabot Oil & Gas, one of the premier drillers in the Marcellus, is merging with (being acquired by) Permian driller Cimarex (see 
The judge in a lawsuit initiated by Cabot Oil & Gas against a Susquehanna County, PA landowner and his lawyers has had it up to here with the ongoing stonewalling and delay tactics by the landowner’s lawyers. “Four years we’ve been spinning our wheels on this nonsense,” the judge said. “The court is extremely frustrated, to put it politely.” The judge bordered on being impolite at a hearing last Thursday…
We’re devastated. We know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but we do. Our favorite Marcellus/Utica driller for years has been Cabot Oil & Gas. We know some great folks who work for Cabot. It has been a peerless operator in the northeast Marcellus–making money when nobody else could. Cabot treats its landowners well, cares about the environment, gives big money to local nonprofit causes, and in general is the best kind of corporate citizen anybody could wish for. We suppose it was only a matter of time before Cabot became a target in this merger mania we’re currently going through. This morning Cabot announced a “merger of equals” with Cimarex, a big driller in the Permian and Midcontinent. The truth is Cimarex is buying out Cabot.