17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Oct 21 – 27
For the week of Oct 21 – 27, there were 17 permits issued to drill Marcellus/Utica wells, up from 14 permits issued the prior week. The Keystone State (PA) had 12 new permits, with five going to Chesapeake Energy (now Expand Energy) in Wyoming County and two each for PennEnergy Resources (Beaver County) and Coterra Energy (Susquehanna County). Single permits were issued to Pennsylvania General Energy, Inflection Energy, and XPR Resources. The Buckeye State (OH) had five new permits, with four going to Gulfport Energy in Belmont County. The other OH permit was for Infinity Natural Resources (INR) in Guernsey County. The Mountain State (WV) issued a big, fat zero new permits last week. Read More “17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Oct 21 – 27”
Yesterday, two European companies announced separate deals for Coterra Energy to provide Marcellus natural gas to an unidentified LNG export facility that will liquefy and sell it to them. One company was commodities trader Vitol (based in Switzerland) and the other utility giant Centrica (based in the U.K.). Both deals were for 100 MMcf/d (or 100,000 MMBtus) each. The Vitol deal is for 11 years, and the Centrica deal is for 10 years. Combined, it represents 1.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus natural gas heading to other European and Asian countries. 
In September, the Executive Director of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) renewed 20 water-use permits for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, and Susquehanna counties. We’re just learning of the action via an official notice published in the Oct. 26 edition of the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The approvals, which are NOT subject to public review according to SRBC regulations, are general water permits. Each site will be required to receive a specific water withdrawal approval at a later date. 
The SHALE INSIGHT® 2024 event was held from September 24 to 26 at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, PA. Attendees got an insider’s view from the nation’s foremost energy leaders and experts on shale development, environmental protection, pipeline investment, energy-driven manufacturing, and in-demand jobs. We brought you a few news items we noticed in mainstream media from the event, one about antis protesting outside the event (see 
In 2024, natural gas prices have spent almost the entire year under $3.00 per Mcf (thousand cubic feet), including a few months under $2.00/Mcf. You would think such low prices would have a negative effect on the stock prices of publicly traded Marcellus/Utica gas producers. Not so! Stock prices for our drillers have remained “remarkably stable.” In fact, Antero Resources’ price is actually UP this year. Range Resources is flat for the year so far. Others, like EQT and Coterra Energy, are down just a smidge. Given the disadvantages of the M-U basin—primarily the lack of pipeline takeaway capacity and the long distance our molecules must travel to Gulf Coast LNG export facilities—it’s surprising that stock valuations for our drillers have not been negatively impacted. 
Feedgas flows from the Marcellus/Utica to the Cove Point LNG export facility located on the shore of Maryland fell to zero last Friday, Sept. 20. It was the start of the facility’s annual maintenance outage. The question is, how long will Cove Point be out of commission for liquefying and exporting LNG? According to Reuters, maintenance forcing the facility offline will last “for about three weeks.” Each year, the plant closure is a moving target and a guessing game about how long it will remain offline. Every day counts! 
Dimock Township (Susquehanna County), PA, resident Ray Kemble was one of several Dimock landowners who sued and later settled with Cabot Oil & Gas (now Coterra Energy) over claims that Cabot’s drilling had “polluted” their water wells (with methane). In 2012, Kemble received $180,000. As part of the settlement, Kemble agreed to not publicly bash Cabot. Kemble proceeded, with money given to him by Big Green groups, to attend meetings across the country and overseas bashing Cabot (see 
We never thought we’d see the day when we would write the headline that Coterra (nee Cabot Oil & Gas) was pulling all of its active rigs in the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. But today is that day. It makes us profoundly sad (and the primary reason we opposed the merger of Cimarex and Cabot, see 
There’s just no way to sugarcoat the fact that the low low price for natural gas is having an impact on shale drillers in the Marcellus/Utica. According to an analyst with RBN Energy, a price plunge to near the $2/MMBtu level in early 2023 “crippled” financial results for the companies RBN monitors that are gas-focused (namely M-U companies). However, most producers on the RBN list have remained in the black through spending less and cutting back on production. Down but far from out. How did the major M-U companies that are publicly traded perform in 2Q24? We have the numbers below. 
Despite one of the hottest summers on record, natural gas prices are in the crapper. The abysmal price situation is causing big drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, like EQT and Coterra, to cut back even further on natural gas production, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. Coterra CEO Tom Jorden recently told investors that “gas markets are oversupplied,” and his company will trim production by an extra 325 MMcf/d (see 
Coterra Energy, formed by the merger of Cabot Oil & Gas (drills for natural gas in the Marcellus) and Cimarex Energy (drills for oil in the Permian and Anadarko basins), issued its second quarter 2024 update on Friday. The company turned in respectable financial numbers, making a profit of $220 million in 2Q24, up 5% from the $209 million it made in 2Q23. Unfortunately, there was bad news for the Marcellus. The company has just trimmed another 325 MMcf/d of production across the Marcellus basin, and once the three pads it is actively drilling have concluded in October, no new drilling is planned.