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Marcellus/Utica Driller Stock Prices Soar Over Past 30 Days
Because of the soaring price of natural gas (see our companion post today), and because gas drillers have shown remarkable restraint and a real effort to scale back capital spending in an effort to generate free cash flow, investors have taken note and like what they’ve seen. The share price in most pure-play shale gas producers (mainly those in the M-U) posted double-digit gains in value over the past month.
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In May MDN told you about one of the oddest combinations in recent memory–the merger of Permian driller Cimarex Energy with Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas (see 
Last week only Pennsylvania issued new permits for new shale well drilling–14 of them scattered around the state. Both Ohio (for the seventh week in a row) and West Virginia did not issue new shale permits last week.
Northeast Pennsylvania high schoolers are getting a look at what a career in the shale energy field looks like. The Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center in Dimock, in cooperation with Cabot Oil & Gas, is hosting its annual week-long Energy and Oilfield Career Experience summer camp. Susquehanna County, the only county where Cabot drills, is the #1 producer of natural gas in PA. Has been for years.
Cabot Oil & Gas announced on Friday as part of its second quarter 2021 update the company will *increase* production during the second half of this year. Cabot CEO Dan Dinges said because the Williams Leidy South Expansion Project will be fully online in 4Q and because the gas price outlook this winter is strong, the company plans to increase production by 4% in 3Q, and by a full 10% in 4Q. Finally! Somebody willing to drill more and produce more and make a profit doing it.
Expectations coming from Wall Street are that pure-play drillers, like many in the Marcellus/Utica, will show a turnaround in their financials for the second quarter of 2021. According to S&P, investors took drillers at their word last year that they won’t “drill baby drill” the way they have in years gone by. The stock prices of nearly all major M-U drillers have soared over the past 12 months as a result. The biggest turnaround has been Antero Resources. Its stock price is up nearly 400% over the past 12 months! Range Resources’ stock price is up 140%.
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.
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