4 Marcellus Drillers Ramp Up Production in 2016
We can’t say enough good things about Rusty Braziel and RBN Energy. Rusty was the co-founder of Bentek Energy, sold a few years ago to Platts. Rusty is the consummate industry professional who has forgotten more about the oil and gas industry than most of us will ever know. He recently wrote and published The Domino Effect: How the Shale Revolution is Transforming Energy Markets, Industries and Economies (buy it on Amazon). Rusty has collected a group of very smart industry analysts who write about the oil and gas industry. One of those analysts is Nick Cacchione, who wrote a post on the RBN Energy website yesterday about the top 10 gas-focused drillers in the country. It’s no coincidence that all of them have operations in the Marcellus/Utica, and most of them are totally focused on the northeast. We found it to be an enlightening and helpful article. One of the main points is how four of the top 10, while reducing their spending, have significantly increased their production numbers for 2016. Here’s a deep dive into the top 10 according to RBN, featuring the four who are “stepping on the gas”…
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In February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see 
In June MDN brought you a report about a family (John and Ashley Voyle) living near a former Range Resources wastewater impoundment in Washington County, PA who had sued not only Range, but a water testing company (TestAmerica Laboratories) in a lawsuit alleging their water well had been contaminated by Range’s impoundment. The water testing company was made part of the lawsuit because, said the Voyles, the company allowed their test results to be doctored by Range before the results were reported to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection. That aspect of this long, drawn-out lawsuit has been decided. The judge in the case said TestAmerica is not at fault and has been removed from the lawsuit…
Gulfport Energy, an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (“driller”) that is a “top 5” driller in the Ohio Utica Shale, issued their third quarter operation update yesterday. Gulfport is one of a growing number of companies that issues their financial update separate from the operational update. Typically the operational update is the “good news” and the financial update the “not so good news,” so we’ll see what the financial update brings. In the meantime, let’s bask in the good news. Gulfport reports production is up 13% year over year, and the price they’re receiving for that production is also up. Here is Gulfport’s 3Q16 operational update…
A little over a month ago, Bradford County, PA commissioners voted to hire a public relations firm to create a video to force the issue of passing House Bill (HB) 1391, a bill ensuring PA’s landowners will receive a 12.5% royalty check regardless of post-production costs (see 
Question: How can your business take advantage of the development of a petrochemical industry in your backyard? That was the question and premise behind a new white paper/report from the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center. The white paper, titled “Shell Petrochemical Complex (“Cracker”) Project Overview – The First Step in Establishing a Regional Petrochemical Sector” (full copy below) provides an excellent overview of the coming ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA–with details for how and who can benefit from it. The paper is mainly aimed at manufacturers that will be able to leverage the output from the plant–but there’s plenty of other great information in this paper to inspire and get your creative business juices flowing. Take time to download and read it. The future of your business may depend on it!…
The table has been turned on Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and her corrupt co-conspirator, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. A U.S. District Court Judge in Texas has granted Exxon the right to examine “internal phone records, other communications and depositions” related to Healey’s involvement in attempting to persecute Exxon Mobil for daring to say man-made global warming may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps the judge will also extend his order to NY AG Eric Schnedierman too? That would be terrific. At a minimum, when Exxon goes fishing, no doubt communications (i.e. corrupt collusion) between Healey and Schneiderman will be found and exposed to the light of day for all to see. In our wildest dreams both AGs will be forced to resign–an appropriate action considering their rabidly radical views against, and attempts to criminalize, fossil fuels. Here’s the low down on what the judge said and did…
We spotted a press release issued yesterday by Cabot Oil & Gas, providing an update for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Which kind of surprised us. Why would Cabot issue an update on someone else’s pipeline? Is Cabot an investor in the project? We asked–the answer is “no.” However, Cabot is the major shipper that will use the Central Penn Line portion of the Atlantic Sunrise project. And that’s what the announcement was about. Cabot said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has announced it is actively reviewing two alternative routes for the Central Penn Line, accepting public comment until Nov. 14. OK, so that sometimes happens. Is it worth a press release? Then we read that this development means yet another delay for the Atlantic Sunrise project–and investors immediately punished the stock for both Williams and Cabot. Ah, now we understand! The press release is to reassure investors that Cabot believes FERC, while slowing things down a little, won’t delay things too long. THAT’S what the press release is really all about…
EQT, one of the largest Marcellus/Utica drillers, also owns a sizable pipeline subsidiary, EQT Midstream. EQT announced yesterday it is transferring ownership of its Allegheny Valley Connector pipeline system, which includes several Marcellus Shale gathering pipeline systems, from the Mothership to the child company. They will take $275 million out of one pocket and put it in a different pocket–on the same pair of pants. Such is how things are done in high finance. EQT picked up Allegheny Valley Connector in a $720 million deal with Peoples Natural Gas in 2013 (see 
This is so unusual, it qualifies as news: Supervisors in Buffalo Township (Butler County), PA have approved a new compressor station to be built by Mountain Gathering–a subsidiary of XTO Energy. The reason it’s news is for how the approval process was handled. Town residents who live near where the station will be built understandably had some concerns. Those concerns were aired. Town officials visited other compressor stations built by Mountain Gathering. They had XTO officials in to answer questions. There was no bleating and blatting, no parading in front of cameras and microphones, no “die-ins” and radical protests. Just deliberative, calm, adult discussions. And at the end of it, the supervisors voted to grant permission for the compressor station to get built. Unusual!…
In September the Ohio Supreme Court finally ruled on a series of cases involving the state’s Dormant Mineral Act, or DMA (see 
We remember watching Marlin Perkins on “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” growing up. For the younger generations, it was a TV program roughly the equivalent of watching today’s Discovery channel. In particular we remember watching a wildebeest being taken down by a pack of jackals. The jackals would watch for an advantage–a wildebeest that was old and slow, or wounded, or maybe too young to keep up with the herd. They would single it out and one after another jump on it to bring it down. That’s the image that floated through our heads as we noticed a sudden surge of law firms filing class action lawsuits against Chesapeake Energy. No, these lawsuits have nothing to do with Chesapeake shorting landowners in their royalty checks–there’s already a bunch of those lawsuits. These lawsuits are new and stem from the recent announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission and even the U.S. Postal Service have launched investigations into Chesapeake (see 
In June, Shell announced a final investment decision (FID) to move forward with building a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant in Pennsylvania (see