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FERC Sides with Energy Transfer Against Chesapeake re Pipe Contract
On Sunday, June 28, Chesapeake Energy, with major operations in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed for bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership). As part of the filing, the company asked the bankruptcy court to allow it to break existing, legal, enforceable contracts with several pipeline companies, including Energy Transfer’s Tiger Pipeline (see Chesapeake Asks Court to Break Pipeline Contracts, Including M-U). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is siding with Energy Transfer against Chessy.
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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. As recently as June 2019 the company reported drilling 9-14 Utica wells per year (see 
Range Resources issued its annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR) this morning (full copy below). The report lays out the company’s performance on key issues. It also sets so-called greenhouse gas reduction targets. Of particular note, Range has set a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025. If they do, they would be the first oil and gas company to achieve a net-zero threshold by 2025–less than five years from now.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) in early 2019 when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see 
Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against EQT claiming discrimination against the company as a minority-owned company after it canceled a contract worth some $66 million last year. This is an involved story and of course, there are always two sides to every story (and two sides to every lawsuit).
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. Peregrine announced yesterday the company has cut a deal to buy “producing royalties in Doddridge County, West Virginia from several private sellers.” The private sellers are landowners/rights owners with wells drilled by Antero Resources and Jay-Bee Oil & Gas. No details on how much the deal was for.
Last week we brought you the bombshell news that Southwestern Energy is buying out and merging in Montage Resources in an all-stock deal worth roughly $857 million (see 
Range Resources is running up the debt tab. In January the company issued $550 million in new notes (debt, IOUs) which they used to turn around and pay down older notes (see 
Today is “notes” day on MDN. Yesterday three major Marcellus/Utica drillers, including Southwestern, Range, and the subject of this post–Antero Resources–all said they are issuing notes, or what we think of as IOUs (debt) in varying amounts. All of the notes issued are for the same reason–to pay down debt. Issue new debt to pay down old debt. Only in the world of high finance! For Antero, the company is issuing $250 million with an extra option to issue another $50 million, or $300 million total, potentially.
Last week, in one of the biggest news stories (for us) so far this year, Southwestern Energy announced it is buying out and merging in Montage Resources (see 
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t actually do any of its own drilling. The company partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company does the actual drilling. Epsilon, according to its website, owns ~4,000 net acres in the PA Marcellus. They also own assets in Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin. Last week the company issued its second-quarter 2020 update.
In June MDN told you that a New York City law firm was “investigating” Cabot Oil & Gas with an eye to filing a class action lawsuit, on behalf of investors, over false allegations made by the Pennsylvania Attorney General who had filed felony charges against Cabot regarding a long-closed regulatory issue in Dimock, PA (see 
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its second-quarter 2020 update yesterday. The company added another 25 wells to production in 2Q and produced 2.1 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), a new company high. Unfortunately, the financial picture was not as rosy…
Holy smokes! We didn’t see this one coming. Just yesterday MDN brought you the second-quarter update from Montage Resources (see 
In June, Antero Resources, one of the biggest (and best) Marcellus/Utica pure play drillers concentrating most of their drilling in West Virginia, sold an overriding royalty interest (ORRI) in all of their wells for $402 million (see