Gulfport Continues Board “Refreshment” – 5th Change in 2 Months
In mid-November Gulfport Energy, one of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica Shale (210,000 acres), announced they would lay off 13% of their workforce, end (for now) their stock share buy-back program, and “refresh” the board with three new members (see Gulfport Fires 13% of Workers, Ends Stock Buy-Back, Board Changes). Five weeks later and the company announced yet another new board member (see Gulfport Continues Board “Refreshment” – 4th Change in 5 Weeks). And now, a fifth new board member in just a little over two months. What’s going on?
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Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro claims an accident in 2017 (based on human error) that resulted in 63,000 gallons of produced water in Lycoming County, PA spilling onto the ground (outside the well pad) is negligent and a crime. Shapiro has filed criminal charges against Inflection Energy and the subcontracting company they used, Double D. We view it as yet another stunt by a man who wants to tee himself up to run for governor.
A longtime dispute between the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Range Resources reemerged in January when the DEP ordered Range to fix a well in Lycoming County the DEP alleges is leaking methane into the surrounding ground and water supplies. The DEP says faulty cement casing allows methane to leak. Range maintains the methane was already in the ground/water supply long before it drilled the well. Range is appealing the DEP’s order to “fix it” to a special environmental court.
We’ve reported on the divestment meme for years–the effort by anti-fossil fuel radicals to force banks and investment firms to withdraw funding and refuse to invest in (or lend money to) any company that produces “fossil fuels.” Most recently Jim Cramer from CNBC’s “Mad Money” said, “I’m done with fossil fuels. They’re done. They’re just done.” (see 
Yesterday Cabot Oil & Gas issued an operational update for 2019 that includes new guidance for 2020. Think of it as a sneak preview at the forthcoming quarterly update, due out Feb. 21. In the preview, Cabot says it will spend 27% less on drilling in 2020 than they did in 2019 due to the ongoing low price of natural gas.
Montage Resources provided a sneak preview yesterday for what to expect in 2020. You may recall Montage is the name of the company that resulted after the merger of Eclipse Resources with Blue Ridge Mountain Resources 11 months ago (see 
EQT is working on a deal to sell an “overriding royalty interest” (future share of royalty revenues) generated from the company’s prolific Marcellus/Utica production in return for a cool $1 billion. That’s according to a Reuters article published on Friday.
Late last week National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the parent company of Marcellus/Utica driller Seneca Resources, issued its first quarter (everyone else’s fourth quarter) financial and operational update. NFG CEO and President Dave Bauer proclaimed, “Our team has done a great job cracking the code on our Utica development program” in Tioga County, PA. However, because of the ongoing pricemageddon with natgas prices in the basement, Seneca President John McGinnis said the company will drop to running a single rig for the balance of 2020.
Last November MDN told you that Range Resources was testing an all-electric fracking fleet at the Ziolkowski Pad in Allegheny County (see 
CNX Resources reports losing $271 million in the fourth quarter of 2019–but it wasn’t an actual money-out-of-pocket loss. The company wrote down the value of its Marcellus Shale assets (called an impairment). The company took a $327 million impairment charge for its Marcellus assets in PA, and a $119 impairment charge for unproved gas properties in the Marcellus. Below we have details on how many Marcellus wells CNX drilled and completed in 4Q and for the full year, and what company’s top brass says about what’s ahead for CNX in 2020 and beyond.
