Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | WGL Holdings
Antero Wins $96M Lawsuit Against DC Utility for Not Buying Gas
In 2016 WGL Midstream became an investor/joint venture partner in the Stonewall Gathering System, a system which gathers Antero Resources’ natural gas from several West Virginia counties (see M3’s Stonewall Gathering System in WV Gets New Investor/Partner). WGL Midstream is a subsidiary of Washington Gas Light Co., a utility servicing the Washington, D.C. area.
Read More “Antero Wins $96M Lawsuit Against DC Utility for Not Buying Gas”
We caught some news of interest coming from last week’s Hart Energy DUG East Conference about Equinor, formerly known as Statoil. According to reporters at the event, Nicole Baird, an asset manager with Equinor, said the company has increased its Utica production five-fold from 2016 to 2018 and now produces in the range of 300 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Utica shale gas.
The nasty proxy war between EQT CEO Rob McNally and Toby Rice over who will control the company following a July 10 annual meeting just got a whole lot nastier. Last Friday, McNally revealed that a review of internal documents they received as part of their purchase of Rice Energy in 2017 show that in the span of two weeks in 2015 some 25 complaints by Rice employees were made against Toby with the Rice HR department, although the nature of the charges are not detailed, leaving it open to shareholders to speculate.
The legal beagles at Vorys represented Antero Resources in a recently-decided case with far-reaching implications for Ohio drillers and landowners. The Vorys team won the case. As with most lawsuits, this one is complicated and gets in the weeds. The short short version is that under an original lease signed years ago, a landowner and drilling company (at that time) removed a section of the lease that allows the landowner’s property to be pooled (called “unitized” in Ohio) with other properties.
Last week, in addition to the petchem event held in Pittsburgh, Hart Energy held their DUG East (Developing Unconventional Gas) event in Pittsburgh. Although MDN did not attend DUG, MDN friend Rick Stouffer from Kallanish Energy did. Rick caught some interesting news about two of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica–Ascent Resources and Encino Energy. One of the eye-opening stats Rick reports is that Encino is sending a full 70% of their Utica production to the Gulf Coast. In addition, most of Ascent’s production goes out of the region too–one-third to the Gulf Coast, one-third to the Midwest, and one-third to the East Coast.
In January 2018, some 18 years ago, MDN told you that EXCO Resources had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
LOLA Energy was birthed near the end of 2015, by former EQT executives using private equity money from Denham Capital (see 
Although the second quarter isn’t over yet, EQT has just released “preliminary” 2Q19 financial and operational results in a bid to fend off a takeover attempt. EQT’s current management and board of directors is in a tough fight to retain control of the company. Toby and Derek Rice, formerly of Rice Energy (which was sold to EQT in 2017) are making a play to replace the board of directors and all of EQT’s top management.
A Pennsylvania landowner thought he could finagle extra payments from XTO Energy after his land was drilled under from a neighboring property. The landowner had signed a lease, and the lease contains language that says if XTO were to drill “on” his property (i.e. install a well pad) the landowner would receive an extra payment. The landowner sued saying “on” also means “under” when XTO drilled under his property. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania disagreed, saying “on” means “on the surface” and “under” does not mean “on”.
Oil and gas giant BP recently released its annual Statistical Review of World Energy–the 68th edition (full copy below). Among the interesting findings in BP’s analysis of global energy last year: wind and solar energy, while growing, only provide a minuscule 3% of the world’s energy supply. Meanwhile fossil fuels–coal, natural gas and oil–accounted for 85% of global energy consumption in 2018. Hey, tell us again how renewables are taking over the world–as we pick ourselves up off the floor from laughing so hard.
Yesterday the Pittsburgh Business Times broke the news that Range Resources, one of the Marcellus/Utica’s biggest drillers (and in fact the very first driller to sink a Marcellus well, back in 2004), has laid off 40 employees–roughly 5% of its workforce. The layoffs are split between the company’s Pennsylvania and Texas operations.
In Feb. 2016, lawsuits filed by some ~200 West Virginia residents against Antero Resources were combined into a class action (see