Different drillers have (surprise!) different opinions when it comes to whether or not drilling in the Upper Devonian Shale (UD) layer is a good idea to do now or later. They all seem to indicate the UD will get drilled, it’s only a question of when.
The three different strategies of EQT, CONSOL and Range Resources with respect to the UD:
Read More “Different Strokes for Different Upper Devonian-Drilling Folks”
It seems as if “out of the blue” the Upper Devonian Shale (UD) has popped up on the radar screen–quite suddenly and in quite a big way. The Upper Devonian is located a few hundred feet above the Marcellus Shale layer in the northeastern U.S. Over the past few weeks, MDN has highlighted stories of drillers expanding their UD drilling programs–including CONSOL, Rex Energy, Range Resources and EQT Corporation (see EQT 4th Driller to Target Upper Devonian Shale Layer). Courtesy of a sharp MDN reader, we can add a fifth UD driller to the list: Chesapeake Energy. Todd Sigler reports that Chesapeake has drilled an Upper Devonian well in Hancock County, WV and has several Upper Devonian permits in extreme western Beaver County, PA.
Todd also pointed us to two excellent drilling presentations about the UD, one from Range Resources and one from Rex Energy, which we’ve embedded below. The Range presentation includes a good backgrounder on the UD and a great series of maps showing where the best places to drill in the UD can be found–currently–based on our knowledge and experience so far. The Range presentation also discusses how Range (and others) are adopting a “stacked play” strategy of drilling the Upper Devonian, Marcellus and Utica layers–all in the same well bore. How cool is that?!
Read More “5th Upper Devonian Driller + Maps of Best UD Spots to Drill”
EQT has distinguished itself by becoming the second Marcellus Shale driller to join the “1 billion cubic feet per day club” in Marcellus Shale gas production. Cabot Oil & Gas was the first member (see Who’s a Member of the Marcellus “1 Bcf/d” Club?). EQT had a tremendous second quarter, as reported in their 2Q13 update issued yesterday. Marcellus production was up an astonishing 111% from 2Q12.
A few more facts and figures from yesterday’s update: in 2Q13, EQT started to drill (or “spud”) 41 Marcellus wells; they completed three Utica wells with one of them going online for sales of gas; and EQT spud eight Upper Devonian wells (completing four of them), with plans to drill up to 22 UD wells this year…
Read More “EQT 2Q13: Welcome to the Marcellus “1 Bcf/d Club””
EQT has become the fourth Marcellus/Utica driller (that we’re aware of) to target the Upper Devonian Shale, a shale layer that sits a few hundred feet above the Marcellus Shale layer. The other three drillers are Rex Energy, Range Resources, and CONSOL Energy (see New Shale Layer Above the Marcellus Yields Positive Results). EQT already has eight Upper Devonian wells (four of them completed) with plans to drill up to 22 Upper Devonian wells this year, according to CEO David Porges on an investors call yesterday…
Read More “EQT 4th Driller to Target Upper Devonian Shale Layer”
Who doesn’t love a Top 10 list? David Letterman has built a career on them. There are a lot of different ways to measure who the biggest drillers are in Pennsylvania–the Top 10 drillers. Recently, the Pittsburgh Business Times took a fresh stab at it. They counted how many shale gas wells have been permitted for drilling companies. It doesn’t mean the wells have been drilled yet, but you don’t spend big bucks on a permit to not drill. We can safely assume if it’s permitted, it either has been or soon will be drilled.
So who are the Top 10? The names of the drillers in the list may not surprise you, but we bet the number of permitted wells they have and their order in the list may surprise you…
Read More “PA’s Top 10 Marcellus Drillers Based on Number of Permits”
Those who hate fossil fuels and want to stop all shale drilling because of their irrational beliefs are logic-challenged. Witness their claim/belief that fracking fluid (99.5% water and sand, 0.5% chemicals) pumped a mile or more below the surface will magically travel up to the surface and contaminate groundwater supplies. Never mind that 80% of the fluid disappears into small cracks a mile down. Never mind there’s a mile of solid rock between the fluid and the surface. Never mind there have been more than 50,000 horizontally fracked wells since the early 2000s with not a single case of water contamination from migrating frack fluid. And never mind there have been more than 2 million vertically fracked wells worldwide over the past 60+ years with not a single case of water contamination from migrating frack fluid. Anti-drillers cling to their irrational faith that fluid migration has and continues to happen and hucksters like Josh Fox of Gasland and Gasland 2 fame are all too willing to feed their delusion.
Enter the federal government–specifically the Dept. of Energy (DOE) under Barack H. Obama, no friend of the oil and gas industry. Exactly one year ago the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh began an experiment of injecting tracer chemicals in fracking fluid at an undisclosed drill site with eight wells in Greene County, PA. (The driller cooperating with NETL to conduct the experiment is unidentified, although MDN has a pretty good guess as to who it is–see below.) The NETL monitored (and continues to monitor) the eight wells over the past year and although the data is still preliminary, what have they found? No migration of fracking fluid toward the surface. Zero. It’s called science–but don’t tell Josh Fox and the nuts who believe him…
Read More “Breaking: Obama DOE Says Study Shows Fracking Fluids Don’t Migrate”
EQT, a major driller in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, as well as a midstream (pipeline) operator, just announced they will sell a major natural gas pipeline they own–the Sunrise Pipeline–for $540 million to…itself. Er, at least to the EQT Midstream Partners, a new/separate Master Limmited Partner (MLP) company started by EQT to focus on the midstream sector. The ownership of the pipeline will change on paper (for accounting and investor purposes), but practically speaking, nothing else will change.
The EQT announcement:
Read More “EQT Sells Sunrise Pipeline Operation to Itself for $540M”
You’ve got to hand it to George Soros–the guy has chutzpah. In case you don’t know who George Soros is, he’s an 82 year-old super-investor (think Warren Buffet) whose investments at last check were worth $9.5 billion. Soros was convicted of insider trading in 2005. He’s also accused of causing “Black Wednesday” in 1992 when his currency manipulation schemes precipitated a worldwide economic crisis. Soros essentially owns the Democrat party in the United States–he’s one of the (perhaps the) biggest contributors to their coffers. He’s a socialist (which used to be a bad word before Obama). His politics are slightly left of Attila the Hun.
Soros is also linked to the nefarious anti-drilling Public Accountability Initiative (see Soros-backed PAI Makes University of Texas Look Foolish). But what’s this? Two of the top five companies that Soros currently invests in are…wait for it…shale drillers! That’s right. Soros funds anti-drillers (PAI, the Democrat party, who knows what else) and at the same time invests in what he knows is the biggest energy bonanza that will happen during the rest of his lifetime. It’s kind of like those sleazy weapons manufacturers that sell to both sides of a war in a third world country.
So, which two drillers are in the Soros top five? One of them is a major Marcellus driller…
Read More “George Soros Plays Both Sides of Fracking Issue, for Profit”
Listen up companies that want to be part of Marcellus/Utica driller EQT Corporation’s supply chain: You now need to be ISN (ISNetWorld) certified…
Read More “EQT Clamps Down on Supply Chain Partners, Requires ISN Cert”
Some thumping and bumping is coming to New Eagle (Washington County), PA. EQT presented plans last night at a council meeting to conduct seismic testing in the borough in late August/early September. Seismic testing, depending on what it finds, usually precedes drilling…
Read More “Siesmic Testing, Drilling (?) Coming to New Eagle, PA”
On Friday, EQT Corporation released updated numbers for their estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) rates in the Marcellus Shale, along with a new analyst presentation (full copy embedded below). EQT says the average well in southwest PA and WV will produce close to 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas per well over their lifetimes, while wells in central PA will produce around 6 1/2 billion cubic feet on average. The EUR numbers are up from previous estimates.
EQT owns 560,000 acres of leases in the Marcellus Shale on which they plan to drill >2,800 wells. Here’s the press release and analyst presentation:
Read More “EQT Analyst Presentation: EUR for Marcellus Wells Goes Up”
MDN recently highlighted two deals by Chesapeake to sell Marcellus Shale acreage at what we consider fire sale prices–in one case $574 per acre (see Southwestern Energy Buys 162K PA Marcellus Acres from Chesapeake), and in a second case $606 per acre (see Chesapeake Fire Sale Continues – EQT Picks up 99K Acres in SW PA).
However, Seeking Alpha blogger and energy analyst Richard Zeits–someone whose opinion we respect–has a different take. He says when you analyze the deals closely, they aren’t as irrational as they may appear, and these deals are far from a “fire sale”…
Read More “Zeits Says Chesapeake Marcellus Land Deals Not a Fire Sale”
The Chesapeake Energy fire sale of assets continues. On Friday, EQT Corp. announced they’re picking up 99,000 acres of leases and 10 horizontal wells in the Marcellus Shale from Chessy in southwestern PA for $113 million. Of that number, $60 million is the price for the acreage (and $53 million for the 10 operating wells). If you run the math, that’s $606 per acre ($60M/99K)–i.e. fire sale price.
Below is the EQT announcement (first), and analysis of the deal by Seeking Alpha blogger and energy analyst Richard Zeits (second):
Read More “Chesapeake Fire Sale Continues – EQT Picks up 99K Acres in SW PA”
EQT turned in a report on the first quarter of 2013 today and the numbers are excellent. Marcellus Shale production for the company rose 103% over the same period last year. Midstream volumes are up, revenue is up, profits are up. Hey, it’s all looking up for EQT!
EQT had 79.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale for 1Q13–they’re closing in and will soon become the second member of the 1 Bcf/Day Club (Cabot is already in the club). Here’s the EQT report issued this morning:
Read More “EQT 1Q13 Report: It’s All Looking "Up" – Thanks to the Marcellus”
On March 1, MDN told you about the complex deal agreed to between EQT and People’s Natural Gas. EQT wants to swap its gas utility division, called Equiptable Gas Company, to People’s in return for cash and a midstream company owned by Peoples called Allegheny Valley Connector (see Pittsburgh Driller & Gas Utility Co Want to Swap Assets). Good news today from EQT. They report the Federal Trade Commission has “not objected” to (meaning it approves of) the transfer–a big hurdle to completing the deal. However, there’s still a number of other approvals from state agencies that need to be obtained before the deal can be finalized.
The announcement today from EQT about the FTC “approval”:
Read More “EQT & Gas Utility Company Deal Gets Federal "Approval"”
A group of extremist anti-drilling organizations, including PennPIRG, PennEnvironment, Public Citizen, Keystone Progress, One Pittsburgh, Common Cause PA, University of Pittsburgh students and “others” held a press conference outside EQT’s annual shareholder meeting in Pittsburgh on Wednesday to unilaterally call for EQT to forfeit their rights to free speech under the U.S. Constitution. These extremist groups want to muzzle EQT’s right to contribute money to political candidates who would stick up for the legal rights of industry to drill for natural gas and oil. Thing is, these extremist groups aren’t willing to give up their right to free speech (i.e. spending money on political campaigns), so why should EQT?
A very twisted press release from said groups:
Read More “PA Anti-Drilling Groups Demand EQT Give Up Right to Free Speech”