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59 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 23-29

New shale permits issued for Jan. 23-29 in the Marcellus/Utica soared! There were 59 new permits issued in total, including 34 (!) new permits for Pennsylvania, 24 (!) new permits for Ohio, and just one measly permit issued in West Virginia. Chesapeake Energy was the runaway winner by grabbing 13 permits, all of them for wells in Bradford County, PA. EOG Resources was the runner-up, receiving eight permits for drilling in Noble County, OH.
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14 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 16-22

New shale permits issued for Jan. 16-22 in the Marcellus/Utica included only 7 new permits in Pennsylvania, 5 new permits in Ohio, and 2 new permits in West Virginia–for a grand total of 14. The top recipient of permits for last week, scoring nearly half, was Coterra Energy (the former Cabot Oil & Gas), with 6 permits issued in northeastern PA’s Susquehanna County.
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Diversified Energy Adds Marcellus Expert to Board of Directors

Kathryn Klaber

Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company has been adding shale wells to the mix too. By our estimate, the company owns at least 400 shale wells. Last week, Diversified announced it is adding Kathryn (Katie) Klaber as a non-executive director to its board of directors. SMART move!
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Diversified Energy Using Iconic Air Software to Track & Lower CO2

Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Diversified has aggressively moved to control methane emissions from its operations over the past year (see Diversified Uses Handheld Devices to Detect, Eliminate Methane Leaks, Diversified Investing $9M for Aerial Scans to Detect Methane Leaks, and Diversified Energy Deploys Innovative Methane Measurement Equipment). It’s time to pay attention to the “other” so-called greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Diversified is partnering with Iconic Air to automate, benchmark, and manage carbon emissions from its operations.
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9 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Oct 3-9

Another week of pathetically low numbers for new shale drilling permits issued during the week of Oct. 3-9. The previous week saw only nine new permits too. All of a sudden, Pennsylvania is seeing far fewer permits issued than is typical. Just five new permits were issued in PA for Oct. 3-9, with all five in the northeastern part of the state. Chesapeake received two permits, and Coterra received three permits. In Ohio, just four permits were issued, with two going to Diversified Energy (typically doesn’t drill new wells) in Monroe County, and two going to Encino Energy in Harrison County. West Virginia had a big, fat, goose egg last week. No new permits.
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Diversified to Tap into $700M from Manchin’s High Inflation Law

Now we know why Diversified Energy liked Traitor Joe Manchin’s sell-out Green New Deal law, also falsely referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act (see Some M-U Companies Like Manchin-Schumer High Methane Tax). It seems tucked into the bill is a taxpayer-funded giveaway of $700,000,000.00 (yes, $700 million) to be used for plugging old conventional oil and gas wells. It just so happens Diversified has built a new subsidiary, called Next LVL Energy, to do just that (see Diversified Energy Buys 3rd Well Plugging Co. – WV’s ConServ).

NOTE: Please see an update and clarification immediately below.
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Some M-U Companies Like Manchin-Schumer High Methane Tax

Make no mistake: The Manchin-Schumer “Soar Inflation Higher” bill is bad for the country in EVERY way, including bad for the fossil energy industry via an industry-killing methane tax (see Joe Manchin’s Green New Deal Cave Slaps O&G with Big Methane Tax). Yet some oil and gas companies, including Diversified Energy (which operates in Appalachia), are supporting the methane tax that is part of the bill. We simply don’t understand it.
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Diversified Energy Buys ConocoPhillips Assets in TX, OK for $240M

Diversified Energy (sadly) continues to expand outside the Marcellus/Utica region. Yesterday the company announced it is paying $240 million to buy some of ConocoPhillips’ upstream assets in Oklahoma and Texas. The assets include roughly 1,500 wells spanning 250,000 acres. Diversified, which now owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells used to be solely focused on the Appalachian region–until last year.
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Diversified Energy Buys 3rd Well Plugging Co. – WV’s ConServ

Diversified Energy is growing again. In February, Diversified bought out and merged in well-plugging company Next LVL Energy, headquartered in the Pittsburgh area (see Diversified Energy Buys Well-Plugging Co. NextLVL Energy). In May, Diversified announced it is buying a second well-plugging company, Nick’s Well Plugging LLC, based in Warren, Ohio (see Diversified Energy Buys Second Well-Plugging Co. – Based in OH). Here we are two months later, and Diversified is doing it again–buying a third well-plugging company, Contractor Services Inc. (also known as ConServ), based in Spencer, West Virginia.
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Big Green Uses WV Landowners to Sue EQT, Diversified re Old Wells

Bad old ideas become bad new ideas for those on the left. In June 2018, MDN exclusively brought our readers the news that Diversified Gas & Oil (now called Diversified Energy) had purchased EQT Corporation’s Huron Shale assets, with a bunch of conventional wells, in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia for $575 million (see Diversified Gas & Oil Adds to Conventional Assets in KY, VA, WV). A few months later, the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization (WVSORO) accused EQT of selling off its conventional wells to avoid having to plug them (see WV Surface Owners Accuse EQT of Selling Wells Should be Plugged). Big Green groups are now using a couple of WV landowners in an attempt to launch a class action against EQT and Diversified.
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Diversified Energy Buys Second Well-Plugging Co. – Based in OH

Diversified Energy is growing again. In February Diversified bought out and merged in well-plugging company Next LVL Energy, headquartered in the Pittsburgh area (see Diversified Energy Buys Well-Plugging Co. NextLVL Energy). Yesterday Diversified announced it is buying a second well-plugging company, Nick’s Well Plugging LLC, based in Warren, Ohio, for an undisclosed price. Diversified will add the personnel and equipment from Nick’s to Next LVL, bumping up the existing six well-plugging crews to eight, with plans to add a ninth soon.
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Diversified Energy CEO Rusty Hutson Donates $1.8M to WVU

Diversified Energy CEO Rusty Hutson and his wife Kimberly Hutson, both natives of West Virginia, recently donated $1.8 million to West Virginia University to help fund an experiential learning program, a nursing initiative, and neuroscience care at the university. We have chronicled a number of generous donations by Marcellus/Utica companies and their foundations. However, this has to be the single largest donation by an individual connected to the industry that we’ve seen, to date.
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Diversified Energy Deploys Innovative Methane Measurement Equipment

Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil) owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Most of Diversified’s assets are located in the Appalachian region. This morning the company announced it has purchased and will deploy the Opgal EyeCGas 2.0 system (special handheld camera), with companion EyeCSite Tablet software, along with the SEMTECH® HI-FLOW 2 sampler. The two systems working together are state-of-the-art emissions measurement equipment capable of not only detecting fugitive methane emissions but also estimating the amount of the emissions.
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20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Mar 14-20

We’re back to covering just a single week of new permits issued. The good news is that the PA DEP’s reporting site was still up and online over the past week, so we have numbers! In Pennsylvania, 11 new permits were issued last week, with Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) getting the lion’s share (nine permits), all of them in Susquehanna County on two well pads. Ohio issued seven new permits last week, with Gulfport Energy scoring four of the seven, all on the same pad. West Virginia issued just two new permits, one to Antero Resources and the other to Tug Hill Operating.
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Diversified Energy Buys Well-Plugging Co. NextLVL Energy

Another genius move by Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil). Diversified owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Most of Diversified’s assets are located in the Appalachian region. With that many old oil and gas wells, the company ends up plugging a number of them each year. In the past, one of the vendors Diversified has used to plug old wells is Next LVL Energy, headquartered in the Pittsburgh area. Diversified announced yesterday it is buying Next LVL.
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Top 10 Shale Drillers in Pa. as of Jan 2022 – by # Wells Drilled

With the ever-changing landscape of mergers and acquisitions in the shale industry, including here in the Marcellus/Utica, it’s helpful to check in every now and again with a “top 10” list. This time our top 10 list is for the largest shale drillers/operators in Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Business Times recently updated its “Book of Lists” for active PA shale drillers, all 47 of them. We have a quick list of the top 10 below.
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