Lawrence County, PA O&G Production “Inching Upward Again”
Lawrence County, located along Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio, is not the first county you think of when discussing Marcellus/Utica drilling in western PA. There have been no permits to drill new shale wells in Lawrence so far this year. However, the county does have 58 operating shale wells–and the amount of gas those wells produce is gradually rising. All but 10 of the wells are owned and operated by Hilcorp. Most of the wells are located in just two townships: Pulaski and Mahoning. Linda Nitch, executive director of economic business development for the Lawrence County Regional Chamber of Commerce, believes Hilcorp is pumping more gas from the wells it owns in Lawrence. She’s hearing from some landowners that their royalty checks are “getting a little bigger”…
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EXCO Resources has just been threatened by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with delisting their stock–for the third time. EXCO was once a sizable player in the Marcellus. They still have 184,000 net acres in the Marcellus, with 124 horizontal Marcellus wells drilled and in production. However the company, as we pointed out a year ago, has abandoned the Marcellus/Utica at this point (see 
Carbon Natural Gas Company, through its affiliate Carbon Appalachian Company, teased in a press release issued yesterday that the company has just completed the acquisition of “natural gas producing properties and related facilities” located “predominantly in the State of West Virginia” for $21.5 million. The release does not identify the seller–but MDN believes we know who it is: Cabot Oil & Gas. We supply our evidence below. Carbon Natural Gas is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company (i.e. “driller”) that owns, operates and develops oil and gas properties in the Appalachian, Illinois and Ventura Basin areas of the U.S. Most of the wells they own and operate are conventional. However, in April the company began dipping its toe into unconventional shale as well (see 
It’s not often these days we come across a story that mentions a new lease signed, and the amount of money paid as a signing bonus. Such is the case in Ohio County, WV. The Wheeling Park High School has just signed a lease with Southwestern Energy for $3,500 per acre for 66 acres–giving the school district $231,000 of newly found revenue, thanks to the Marcellus/Utica industry. No drilling equipment will be placed on or near school property. When the drilling eventually happens UNDER the school, and the wells begin to flow, Wheeling Park High School will then get more revenue–18% royalties on all gas produced…
According to the Wall Street Journal, private equity firm Blackstone Group has invested $7 billion in U.S. natural gas. The way the Journal puts it, Blackstone is “betting” $7 billion, implying it’s a risky roll of the dice. A seriously big chunk of that investment was the recent announcement that Blackstone has bought part ownership of Rover Pipeline for $1.57 billion (see 
Huntley & Huntley has plans to drill shale wells in Upper Burrell Township (Westmoreland County), PA. As MDN reported in June, a landowner in Upper Burrell filed an appeal against Upper Burrell’s zoning ordinance that allows drilling in rural, agricultural districts (see 
In May 2012 a water truck driver delivering water to an Anadarko Marcellus Shale well pad in Clinton County, PA missed a turnoff for the road he was supposed to take, at 2:30 am in the morning. A couple of miles later he crashed and tragically died because the road he was on was not marked well and not conducive to the truck he was driving. There was a sign warning the driver not to go beyond a certain point. The driver had previously–that night–already delivered to the well pad and successfully turned onto the road he was supposed to take. Why did he miss it the second time? His widow maintains that even though he worked for a subcontractor, Anadarko was the company in charge and should have had a light illuminating the “No Anadarko Traffic Beyond This Point” sign. So she sued Anadarko, and the subcontractor, for wrongful death. Lower courts threw out the lawsuit but a federal appeals court reinstated a civil suit against Anadarko (see 
We have to confess, we are not only shocked, but somewhat distressed at news we are reading that Cabot Oil & Gas is considering all options, including a sale of its Marcellus acreage in Susquehanna County, PA. To be fair, and to keep it in balance, it seems that the company would prefer to add to its Marcellus acreage, rather than sell it. However, chief financial officer Scott Schroeder said at a conference in Denver yesterday that all options are on the table, including a Marcellus acreage sale “if the terms are right.” MDN editor Jim Willis lives next door to Susquehanna County (and regularly visits Montrose, PA), and knows landowners in the county signed with Cabot. You have to understand how fundamentally Cabot has changed the county, by investing $1.5 billion into the pockets of landowners over the past 10 years, along with spending another $3.1 billion to do the drilling (see 
Monroeville, PA (suburb of Pittsburgh) is making moves to restrict seismic testing within municipal boundaries–a move meant to restrict future shale well drilling in the area by Huntley & Huntley. In a July story, MDN brought you the news that Cougar Land Services, a subcontractor working with Huntley & Huntley, is planning to conduct seismic testing in two rural areas of the municipality, including “small portions” of Monroeville’s northernmost and southernmost tips (see 
MDN has been tracking the prices paid by Shell to landowners to run an ethane pipeline under their land to feed the might cracker plant the company is just now beginning to build in Beaver County, PA. Why? So landowners in Beaver (and other locations) have a useful metric for judging the offers they receive. To be fair, a company that wants to run a local gathering pipeline across someone’s land will pay a lot less than Shell is willing to pay–given you can’t move the cracker plant. Interstate pipelines will likely pay something less too. But still, we find it interesting and useful to know what Shell is up to in Beaver. We don’t have a lot of data points, yet. In June, we learned that Shell paid roughly $75 per foot for 3,138 linear feet of pipeline space in Greene Township (see 
EXCO Resources was once a sizable player in the Marcellus. They still have 184,000 net acres in the Marcellus, with 124 horizontal Marcellus wells drilled and in production. However, EXCO, as we pointed out a year ago, has abandoned the Marcellus at this point (see 
Gulfport Energy, which is the second most active driller in the Ohio Utica, behind Chesapeake Energy, has (so far) drilled 303 Utica wells and owns 211,000 acres of leases in the Buckeye State. Gulfport, which drills mainly in the Utica (but also the SCOOP, in Oklahoma) reported their second quarter 2017 production numbers on July 31 (see 
Earlier this week Rex Energy issued its second quarter 2017 update. During 2Q17 Rex drilled 2, completed 6 and put online into sales 4 wells in their Butler County, PA acreage. They also began drilling a new 4-well pad in Butler. In the company’s Carroll County, OH acreage, Rex drilled a 3 wells on a single pad. The big news from the update was a deal with BP to market Rex’s natural gas liquids (or C3+) production, and the sale of a water pipeline owned by Rex in Salineville, OH for $8 million. Rex’s finances didn’t do so well. In 2Q17 the company lost $10 million versus making a $16 million profit in 2Q16. Production picked up a bit, from 173.4 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d) in 1Q17 to 177.1 MMcfe/d in 2Q17. The official statement said 2Q17 production was “constrained” during the quarter “due to unplanned maintenance downtime in the company’s midstream services.” Which means they had hoped it would have been higher than 177.1 MMcfe/d. Looking forward to 3Q17 Rex says they plan to bring 12 new wells in Butler County online…
Last week one of the Marcellus Shale’s largest drillers, Southwestern Energy, issued its second quarter 2017 update. While production fell slightly from 2Q16 to 2Q17, the fall was due to Southwestern’s Fayetteville Shale production. In both the northeast and southwest Marcellus, Southwestern’s production went up year over year by 12 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe). Southwestern continues to drill and concentrate solely on Marcellus wells–at least in 2Q17. In northeast Marcellus, Southwestern drilled and brought 21 wells online with an average lateral length of 5,530 feet and an average cost of $5.1 million per well. Perhaps we’d characterize them as “short but cheap” wells. Southwestern also drilled an experimental Marcellus well in Bradford County with a lateral of 12,000 feet. That well, the Seymour 1H, is among the top 10% of Southwestern’s wells, with an initial production rate of 37.7 million cubic feet feet (MMcf) per day. Also of note in the northeast–Southwestern added an additional 140 MMcf/d of pipeline capacity, to get their gas to better-paying markets. In southwest Marcellus Southwestern drilled and brought online 15 new wells, with an average lateral length of 7,627 feet and an average cost of $7.1 million per well. The company reported drilling one Utica well in 2Q17–in Washington County, PA. That well will not be completed and online until later this year. The company’s first Utica well, the O.E. Burge 501H in Marshall County, WV, “continues to exhibit strong productivity, with cumulative production of over 2 Bcf in its first six flowing months.” Here’s the lowdown on Southwestern Energy for 2Q17…