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18 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 10-16
Last week 18 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica, down from 24 the week before. Pennsylvania had the most new permits with 12, mostly in the northeastern part of the state in Lycoming and Susquehanna counties. Ohio had four permits evenly divided between Columbiana and Harrison counties. West Virginia had just two lonely permits, one in Lewis and one in Wetzel counties.
Read More “18 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 10-16”
Hilcorp is a major driller founded in 1989 by Jeff Hildebrand. It is THE largest privately-held (stock not publicly traded) oil and natural gas exploration and production company in the U.S. Headquartered in Houston, TX, Hilcorp has over 1,825 employees in multiple operating areas including the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, and (yes) in the Marcellus/Utica. While they don’t have a huge presence here in the northeast, Hilcorp does actively drill shale wells in Lawrence County, PA and Columbiana County, OH. A recent Forbes article based on an interview with Hilcorp CEO Greg Lalicker proved to be a revelation for us: Hilcorp is not unlike Diversified Energy (or maybe it’s the other way around).
Hilcorp is a major driller founded in 1989 by Jeff Hildebrand. It is one of the largest privately-held (stock not publicly traded) oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in the U.S. Headquartered in Houston, TX, Hilcorp has over 1,825 employees in multiple operating areas including the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, and (yes) in the Marcellus/Utica. While they don’t have a huge presence here in the northeast, Hilcorp does actively drill shale wells in Lawrence County, PA and Columbiana County, OH. The Youngstown Business Journal reports Hilcorp is advancing its program in the northern portion of the Ohio Utica.
As MDN reports in today’s lead story, Ohio has just achieved a new milestone by producing more natural gas than the state has ever produced during the first three months of this year (see Top 25 Producing Gas & Oil Wells in Ohio Utica for 1Q18). The best performing individual wells are located in the southern part of the Utica play–in Belmont, Jefferson, Monroe, and Guernsey counties. However, don’t overlook the wells and overall performance of counties in the northern part of the play–places like Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Particularly Columbiana County. The Youngstown Business Journal does a deep dive into the numbers for the northern tier counties and finds that wells drilled by Hilcorp in Columbiana produced “strong results” in 1Q18. Here’s a closer look at the northern Utica counties and the drillers who work there…
Residents in western Lawrence County, PA had a bit of a scare when they noticed a red glow in the sky Saturday night. They took to social media to speculate what it might be. Some called 911 to report what may be a big fire. Turns out it was flaring from a couple of Hilcorp Energy Marcellus Shale wells. The wells are already drilled and producing, so why did they flare? Flaring–or burning of natural gas at the wellhead, is a safety precaution to prevent explosions from too much pressure in the well. A Hilcorp rep said what likely happened is that compressors that compress and send the gas down the pipeline sometimes get moisture in them, and with the freezing cold temperatures, that moisture can freeze and lock up the compressors. Instead of gas building up to dangerous pressures because it can’t flow on down the pipe, the automatic flaring mechanism kicked in to burn off some of the gas–creating the red glow in the night sky. It’s good to see technology–especially safety technology–working as designed…
Lawrence County, located along Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio, is not the first county you think of when discussing Marcellus/Utica drilling in western PA. There have been no permits to drill new shale wells in Lawrence so far this year. However, the county does have 58 operating shale wells–and the amount of gas those wells produce is gradually rising. All but 10 of the wells are owned and operated by Hilcorp. Most of the wells are located in just two townships: Pulaski and Mahoning. Linda Nitch, executive director of economic business development for the Lawrence County Regional Chamber of Commerce, believes Hilcorp is pumping more gas from the wells it owns in Lawrence. She’s hearing from some landowners that their royalty checks are “getting a little bigger”…
Hilcorp has woken up and come alive in the Ohio Utica Shale–for the first time this year. The company recently filed for permits to drill three new Utica wells in Columbiana County. Which is interesting. Hilcorp zigs when everyone zags. Most drilling in the Ohio Utica currently happens in southeastern Ohio–in counties like Belmont, Monroe and Guernsey. When the play first became active for shale drilling, much of the early action happened in Carroll County, and Columbiana. But lately (over the past 2-3 years) most drilling moved south. But Hilcorp, with acreage in the northern Utica in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, continues to make money staying north. In fact, Hilcorp has been called the “dominant active prospector” in the northern tier area of the Utica Shale–an area including Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties in OH and Lawrence and Mercer counties in PA. Hilcorp is strong and steady. They make money when they drill. So we take this as a good sign that drilling is heating up in the northern Utica… 
On Friday, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held a hastily-called webinar to discuss findings that, frankly, aren’t all that newsworthy or surprising. After 10 months of study, the DEP has concluded that zipper fracking activities by Hilcorp in Lawrence County, PA “likely” caused a series of earthquakes in April 2016 so minor that nobody could feel them. And the DEP concluded this after 10 months of study, when a week before the DEP itself issued the permits to drill in Lawrence County, Hilcorp drilling was shut down about seven miles away, across the border in Mahoning County, Ohio, for potentially causing low-level earthquakes there (see