Antero 4Q: Sending Gas for LNG Exports to Gulf Coast & Cove Point
Antero Resources, one of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers with 3.2 Bcfe/d (billion cubic feet equivalent per day) of production, issued its fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. The company earned $901 million in 4Q21, up from $70 million in 4Q20, but still lost $187 million for the full year due to hedges gone bad. Antero generated $237 million and $849 million of Free Cash Flow during the fourth quarter and full year of 2021, respectively. The company placed 10 Marcellus wells and four Utica wells online to sales during 4Q. Antero plans to drill 60-65 new wells in 2022.
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Last week the number of new shale permits issued for the three M-U states more than doubled from the previous week. Four weeks ago there were 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. The company plans to drill a series of new wells (and a well pad) in Washington Township in Westmoreland County. In January we told you about a snag with plans to build the well pad and drill the wells (see 
EQT, the country’s largest natural gas producer, issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. We have loads of great information. In 4Q21 EQT made $1.8 billion in profit (net income), although the company ended up losing $1.2 billion for the year due to bad bets on hedging. The company produced 527 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) of natural gas in 4Q21, versus producing 401 Bcfe in 4Q20–an increase of 31%, mainly due to extra production from buying Chevron’s and Alta Resources’ Appalachian assets over the past year. That works out to be an average daily production of 5.85 Bcf/d last quarter–the highest natgas production of any U.S.-based company.
As it has done for the past couple of years, CNX Resources, when issuing quarterly updates, doesn’t bother to issue a handy summary of the numbers. Instead, CNX’s top brass will talk about some of the particulars on a conference call. Folks interested in the details of the lastest quarter have to wait and wade through SEC filings. A few weeks ago the company issued a quarterly 8-K statement, which we included with our review of 4Q21 (see 
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ECA Marcellus Trust I, traded over-the-counter on the pink sheets, canceled distributions (dividends) to investors for the first three quarters of 2020 due to the pandemic and the crash in oil and gas prices. The company restarted paying dividends in 4Q20–a grand total of 9/10ths of one penny per unit. In 1Q21 ECA increased its distribution to 3.1 cents per unit. In 2Q21, ECA decreased the payout again, down to 2.8 cents per unit. In 3Q21 ECA hiked the quarterly dividend all the way to 7.6 cents per unit. The company announced yesterday for 4Q21 it will nearly double the payout to 13.6 cents per unit.
Tilden Marcellus LLC, a Canonsburg, Pa.-based oil and gas company, filed for chapter 11 protection last Friday in the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Tilden is a “sister company” to Rockdale Marcellus. You may recall Rockdale went through bankruptcy last year, resulting in the sale of substantially all of its assets (in Pennsylvania) to Repsol for $220 million in cash (see 
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