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Family of Worker Killed at Tioga County, PA Well Pad Sues Shell
On the morning of October 27, Marc Jones, an employee of Deep Well Services, was working at a Shell well pad in Tioga County, PA when “a large piece of equipment fell on him, pinning him to the platform 65 feet in the air where he was standing” (see Accident Kills Rig Worker on Shell Well Pad in Tioga County, PA). The blunt force trauma, hitting him in the head, killed him.
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Southwestern Energy, one of the largest Marcellus/Utica drillers, issued its 2018 (and 4Q) update last Friday. The company reports growing M-U production 21% in 2018, to 702 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe). That works out to be 1.9 Bcfe per day. Quite an accomplishment when you consider those numbers happened even after Southwestern sold off their Fayetteville Shale assets last year.
Yesterday was an eventful day for the former Blue Ridge Mountain Resources (nee Magnum Hunter Resources) and Eclipse Resources. We’ve been telling you since last August that the two companies are merging, with Blue Ridge Mountain essentially buying out Eclipse. The deal is done as of yesterday and there is A LOT of news to share–including a name change for the newly combined entity.
Gulfport Energy, one of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica Shale (210,000 acres) with record production in the Utica last year, is scaling back spending in the gassy Utica Shale this year and putting that money into other another shale play–the oily SCOOP.
EQT is not holding their annual meeting in April this year, the month they’ve traditionally held the annual meeting until last year, when it was held in June due to an impending split of the company into upstream and midstream. Instead, the current board is using a legal loophole to delay this year’s annual meeting to July–as a way of obstructing the efforts of Toby and Derek Rice and their proxy war to take over the company.
Chesapeake Energy, started by Aubrey McClendon as a gas-focused drilling company that went on to become the country’s largest natgas producer, is doing its darnedest to get rid of its natgas assets and turn itself into an oil driller. Yet it was the company’s natural gas assets that boosted the company’s financial performance in 4Q18, helping them turn in a better financial performance than analysts expected. Ironic, no?
Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, issued its fourth quarter and full year 2018 update yesterday. Range’s overall production increased 5% year over year, but production in 4Q18 actually fell from 4Q17 in part due to an explosion and extended processing plant outage at MarkWest’s Harmon Creek operation.
About a month ago MDN ran a story in which we said we think it’s likely that a new company called Westmoreland Gas is really just Mountain V Oil & Gas under a new name (see 
More than a month ago MDN editor Jim Willis was contacted by PublicSource, an independent non-profit news organization based in Pittsburgh. A reporter wanted to know if Jim would grant an interview as part of a story he was doing on the Shell cracker, pipelines and the petchem industry in southwest Pennsylvania. Jim said yes.
Last Friday Cabot Oil & Gas released its full year 2018 (and 4Q18) update, proclaiming 2018 was the best year ever for Cabot financially in the past almost 30 years the company has publicly traded shares of stock. The company hit new record natural gas production of 735 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) in 2018 (roughly 2 Bcfe/d), up 7% from 2017.
Comments by Cabot Oil & Gas in their 2018 update issued Friday, along with added comments by CEO Dan Dinges during the earnings call on Friday, reveals the big news that Cabot has given up test drilling in Ohio Knox formation.
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on Canadian energy company Enerplus Corp, which currently owns some 36,000 acres of Marcellus Shale leases in northeastern Pennsylvania. The company doesn’t drilling any wells in the region but does participate by funding the drilling programs of others. On Friday Enerplus issued their 2018 and 4Q18 update, which shows the company’s Marcellus production averaged 208 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).
Looks like we won’t have old Floyd Wilson, the colorful CEO of Halcon Resources, to kick around any more. Wilson along with two other Halcon executives–finance chief Mark Mize, and executive vice president of corporate development Steve Herod–all “resigned” on the same day last week. Halcon used to own acreage and drill in the Ohio Utica.
Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica region (focused on wet gas drilling), released its full year and fourth quarter 2018 update last week. The company reports 2018 daily gas equivalent production averaged a record 2.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d)–up 20% over 2017. 4Q18 production averaged 3.2 Bcf/d, up 37% over 4Q17 (and up 18% from 4Q18). However, the company’s financial performance wasn’t as stellar.
From time to time we check in on Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. The former Canadian company decided to “domesticate” itself, moving headquarters from Canada to Houston, TX last summer (see 
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) on Saturday, Jan. 26, when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see