24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV May 16-22
Just last week MDN told you we will, from now on, bring you new permit data for the previous week on Fridays. Yet here it is Thursday and we’re sharing the permit data for last week. What gives? MDN and its author, Jim Willis, are taking a break Friday (tomorrow) and next Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. Well, we’re taking Monday off for the holiday. We’re taking Friday off because there’s a wedding in Jim’s family this weekend. There are preparations to make, and celebrations to partake in. So we’re bringing you the permit data today, on Thursday. Speaking of which, there were 24 new permits issued last week, with 14 of them going to Pennsylvania, seven to Ohio, and three to West Virginia. We break it down below.
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One of the hottest of the hot sectors in which to invest (right now) is shale energy. That’s according to multiple sources, including a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer, and researcher. In an article appearing on the OilPrice.com website, Alex Kimani talks up mid-cap energy stocks as outperforming the supermajors. Among two of Kimani’s top three picks are two Marcellus/Utica drillers, who are having a stellar year in stock performance. We went looking for the stock performance of other M-U drillers too. We have a list to share showing just how much each driller’s share price has increased this year.
According to RBN Energy, 2021 was the most profitable year in at least the last two decades for oil and gas producers (i.e. drillers). Oil and gas producers reported income two-thirds higher than the previous peak in 2014, when commodity prices were significantly higher. There’s every indication that 2022 will be even better for the bottom line of O&G companies. What about Marcellus/Utica drillers? Yep, they’re on the list of phenomenal results too.
We recently received a couple of recent issues of a monthly news/analysis newsletter from 
Public company Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy less than a year ago, in May 2021, with a new board and new top management (see 
As we were researching background for our lead story today of a potential Gulfport Energy/Ascent Resources merger, we discovered we never reported on Gulport’s fourth quarter and full-year 2021 results. In 4Q21 Gulfport’s production was 1.07 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), virtually the same as 4Q20. Gulfport’s production numbers include both the Ohio Utica and the other play where Gulfport drills, the Oklahoma SCOOP. For the full year, Gulfport produced an even 1.0 Bcfe/d on average in 2021, versus 1.04 Bcfe/d in 2020–down just a tad.
According to S&P Global, shale gas producers behaved themselves during the fourth quarter of 2021 and didn’t, even as the price of gas went sky high, do anything more than maintain current production. Gas drillers kept spending in check, didn’t do any more drilling than was necessary to maintain production, and plowed free cash flow back into dividends and stock buybacks. The result? Investors loved it and share prices soared.
Everyone loves a “top x” list, right? We sure do. Hart Energy, publisher of must-have industry magazines including E&P (Exploration & Production), and Oil and Gas Investor, recently published a special publication called 
This edition of the Marcellus/Utica permits report covers the past two weeks as MDN was taking a break during the last week of 2021. For the period of December 20 through January 2, there were 29 permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. PA had 16 new permits (most of them located on two well pads), OH had 12 new permits (spread across five well pads), and WV had just one new permit. Must be WV DEP took the last two weeks of the year off.
Contrary to the false narrative spun by leftist media that “everyone,” especially large institutional investors, are divesting from and refusing to buy new investments in stocks of companies that drill for oil and natural gas, some of the largest institutional investors came off the sidelines and some (for the first time ever!) got into the game by investing in individual shale gas stocks in the Marcellus/Utica during the third quarter of 2021. Which big investors did the investing and how much did they invest/purchase in the way of stock? We have all the deets below…