2021 Upstream Outlook: M-U CEOs Say Gas Market Will Improve
Yesterday Hart Energy held its annual (always excellent) DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event. Normally the event is held at the Convention Center in Pittsburgh. This year it was an all-virtual event. Among the speakers were CNX CEO Nick Deluliis, PennEnergy Resources CEO Rich Weber, and Ascent Resources CEO Jeff Fisher. While it’s not all blue skies and sunshine ahead, all three CEOs painted a picture of 2021 that’s better than 2020.
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Ascent Resources has listed for sale two “packages” of its assets in the core of the Utica Shale in Ohio. One package contains a non-operated interest in 68 wells and 1,362 net leasehold acres. The second package includes a royalty interest in 10 wells and 106 net revenue interest acres. Details on where the assets are located (which counties) and other details are in the listing below.
Last week Pennsylvania issued 12 new shale well drilling permits with a mix of permits issued in both the southwest (wet gas) and northeast (dry gas) regions of the state. Ohio issued 7 new permits, all of them except one in the same county (Jefferson). West Virginia was a goose egg–no new permits issued last week.
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) is a fascinating company (
Pipeline giant Williams has cut a deal outside of bankruptcy court with Chesapeake Energy. The deal means Williams will continue to gather Chesapeake’s production in the Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Midcontinent shale regions. Chessy has also committed to buying up to 150 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of capacity on Williams’ new Transco Regional Energy Access project which will flow Marcellus gas to customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) is a small-to-midsized driller headquartered in Morgantown, WV. The company drilled its first shale well in 2013. NNE currently owns 49,000 acres of leases “in the heart of the Marcellus Fairway,” operating 27 Marcellus wells and over 100 conventional oil and gas wells, mainly in West Virginia (with some located in southwestern Pennsylvania). In April 2017 MDN reported that NNE had obtained $300 million of investment from two investment firms (see
Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, working primarily in West Virginia, has just won a major sales tax case in the WV Supreme Court that affects the entire oil and gas industry, including M-U drillers.
On Monday we brought you the news that Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale, had filed for bankruptcy over the weekend (see 
We hoped it wouldn’t happen, but warned you it might when Gulfport Energy announced several weeks ago it had missed a debt payment and was in “restructuring” talks (see
EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with operations in Trinidad and China too) has just sold *all* of its Marcellus assets located in Bradford County, PA to (we’ll tell you below, MDN has the exclusive on this) for $130 million. EOG has now left the M-U building.
In August Southwestern Energy announced it is buying out and merging in Montage Resources in an all-stock deal (see