Is Cabot O&G Sniffing Around Chesapeake Energy’s Shale Assets?
A warning right up front: This post is speculation and rumor. As you know if you’ve read MDN (or any other media source covering oil and gas in the past two weeks), on June 28 Chesapeake Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership). With something like $11 billion in outstanding debt and a market value of just over $100 million (a tiny fraction of the debt), it’s obvious debtors will take over the company. What happens then? We spotted a rumor that Cabot Oil & Gas may be interested in a purchase.
Read More “Is Cabot O&G Sniffing Around Chesapeake Energy’s Shale Assets?”
It’s time to revisit a long-festering royalty lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko Petroleum filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office. The case has been through several layers of courts and finally ended up at the PA Supreme Court last fall (see 
Do you remember the child’s game called “Simon Says”? That’s what we were thinking when we read about a lawsuit in Ohio by landowners against a group of shale drillers. The lawsuit, initiated by several landowners in Belmont County, OH, claims the drillers drilled too deep–into the Point Pleasant rock layer–when the leases signed only mention the Utica rock layer. The lawsuit, which is seeking class action status, claims “unjust enrichment” by the drillers.
In June 2018, EV Energy Partners (EVEP), the drilling subsidiary of EnerVest, emerged from bankruptcy court a mere two months after entering with $355 million of debt erased and sporting a new name: Harvest Oil & Gas Corp. (see 
A small Marcellus-focused drilling company based in western Pennsylvania is once again looking for investors. MDS Energy was established in 2005 by Michael D. Snyder. By 2006 the company offered its first investment partnership. Drilling companies today are as much about investments and finance as they are about sinking holes in the ground. MDS quickly grew and in 2007 founded a sister company to concentrate on oilfield services (drilling, construction, etc.) called First Class Energy. First Class has gone on to drill over 1,000 wells, mostly for MDS competitors since MDS itself has not drilled all that many wells–as of the end of 2017 (going by our Marcellus & Utica Shale Upstream Almanac) MDS had eight permits and had drilled four wells–all in Armstrong County, PA.
Last November MDN told you that Northeast Natural Energy, a small-to-midsized driller headquartered in Morgantown, WV, had lost an arbitration battle and owed a group of landowners in central Pennsylvania $7.9 million in payments for NOT drilling on their land (see 
On Sunday, June 28, Chesapeake Energy, with major operations in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed for bankruptcy (see 
On Sunday a week ago (June 28) Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy (see 
On Sunday Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy (see 
We’ve told you for months to expect it. Yesterday (on Sunday) Chesapeake Energy finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after lining up a $925 million loan to keep the doors open, the lights on, and the drill bits chewing away. Pipeline companies (and other vendors) that have contracts with the company should be concerned. The opening paragraph of Chessy’s press release says, “Chesapeake intends to use the proceedings to strengthen its balance sheet and restructure its legacy contractual obligations to achieve a more sustainable capital structure.” That means they’re looking to break existing contracts, using the bankruptcy filing as an excuse.
EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas-producing company in the U.S., is also a very generous company. Through its EQT Foundation charitable giving arm, EQT recently distributed $500,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations and programs in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and northern West Virginia–regions where the company operates. In addition, EQT has given out more than $500,000 in scholarships to high school seniors looking for a career in the oil and gas industry, and another $360,000 in COVID-19-related relief grants to community foundations and food banks.
We feel as though we keep talking to an empty room. That nobody is hearing, or if people are hearing, they don’t believe what we say when we tell you that Joe Biden and the people surrounding him are promising the total destruction of the fossil fuel industry in the U.S.A.–if he gets elected. All you have to do is listen to what he says! We’re not exaggerating nor overstating the case. If you work for the oil and gas industry, if you sell to the industry, if you care about freedom, you simply cannot vote for Joe Biden for President. To do so is to vote for the destruction of our country as we know it. The stakes are that high! Biden is signaling loud and clear his intent to block all new pipeline and LNG projects if he gets elected.
Shell slowly but surely continues to ramp back up the work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the COVID-19 coronavirus hit in March, Shell stopped all work on the cracker plant, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see