Antero Update – Drilling 80-85 Wells in 2021, New $550M Investor
Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (working primarily in West Virginia) issued its 4Q and full-year 2020 update yesterday. During 4Q Antero pumped an amazing 3.65 billion cubic feet per day equivalent (Bcfe/d) of natural gas. Antero is the third-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S. The company drills in the wet gas region and reports selling 132,000 barrels per day of NGLs to both Marcus Hook (near Philadelphia) and Hopedale (in Ohio). Antero is the second-largest NGL producer in the U.S.
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Yesterday the country’s largest natural gas producer, EQT Corporation, released its 4Q and full-year 2020 update, holding a conference call with analysts to discuss the results. The update shows the company produced an average of 4.45 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas in 4Q. Although there was plenty of “free cash flow” for the year, on paper the company lost $967 million in 2020, which is an improvement over the year before when it lost $1.2 billion. Perhaps the biggest news (for us) coming from yesterday’s update is that in 4Q EQT turned its drilling attention to the West Virginia Marcellus. EQT plans to do much more drilling in WV this year too.
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received 16 new permits. Ohio received 3 new permits. And West Virginia received 4 new permits.
Oil and gas drilling giant Equinor (formerly called Statoil) is owned by the Norwegian government. Equinor/Statoil has drilled in the Marcellus/Utica for years. It looks like that may be coming to an end–at least the active drilling part. Equinor officials say they are evaluating their U.S. shale holdings, including their active drilling on 27,000 acres in the Utica Shale, with an eye toward selling.
Once you sort through all of the subsidiaries of subsidiaries of subsidiaries, you’ll find this news from a press release we spotted this morning: PennEnergy Resources has sold a gathering pipeline system in western Pennsylvania, called Pine Run Midstream, to a joint venture partnership between venture capital firm Energy Spectrum Partners (based in Texas) and utility/pipeline company UGI (based in Pennsylvania). Sale price: $205 million.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is once again spinning an error by a major Marcellus driller, Range Resources, as some sort of evil plot to avoid and defraud the DEP. Due to a mistake by a former employee, Range misclassified 42 old conventional wells on acreage it owns and did not plug the wells in a timely (for DEP) fashion. The DEP has just clipped the company $294,000 for the mistake.
Yesterday the mighty Chesapeake Energy emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy having hosed previous stockholders (making their shares of stock worthless), and making the company’s debtors the new shareholder/owners. The company dumped $7.8 billion worth of debt and emerges with $1.27 billion in debt on the books. As we told you last week, everything old is new again: the company will focus on natural gas drilling and downplay oil drilling (see 
Two weeks ago CNX Resources issued its 4Q and full-year 2020 update, except at the time they didn’t issue the usual press release with a summary overview (see 
Cabot Oil & Gas, the powerhouse dry gas producer operating in one northeastern Pennsylvania county (and producing roughly 2.5% of the natgas for the entire nation from that one county) is not due to release full 4Q and full-year 2020 numbers until Feb. 19. However, the company did provide some high-level numbers for last year and a preview of what it plans to do in 2021.
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 reports it *will* pay investors for 4Q20–a grand total of 9/10ths of one penny per unit.
Last Friday National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the parent company for Seneca Resources and Empire Pipeline, issued its latest quarterly update for the quarter ending Dec. 31 (NFG’s first quarter 2021, everyone else’s fourth quarter 2020). Among the pearls of good news for NFG is that the company is adding a rig back in Tioga County, PA to drill on acreage NFG purchased from Shell.
Northern Oil and Gas, Inc., a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced yesterday it has purchased 64,000 net acres producing ~120 MMcfe/d (million cubic feet equivalent per day) in the Marcellus/Utica from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). The cash purchase price is $250 million.
Doug Lawler, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, has swung his ax once again and is firing (i.e. laying off) another 220 employees–just as the company exits from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Most of the layoffs are happening in Chessy’s headquarters located in Oklahoma City.
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Their focus has been to acquire quality production and cash flow–regardless of the well or commodity type (gas or oil)–in the Appalachian Basin. DGO currently owns over 400 Marcellus/Utica shale wells in their portfolio too. The company announced yesterday it has just opened a new “state-of-the-art” natural gas control center in Charleston, WV. Initially, the new center will monitor the Cranberry Pipeline network.