Eclipse Sells 9,900 “Non-Core” Acres in OH for $6,444/Acre
Eclipse Resources, a Marcellus/Utica pure play driller headquartered in State College, PA that drills mostly in Ohio, announced yesterday they sold 9,900 net acres in eastern Noble County and western Monroe County, OH for $63.8 million to an undisclosed buyer. That works out to be $6,444 per acre. The assets are in areas that are (currently) undeveloped, according to the company, and not in the “core” of where Eclipse wants to drill. Here’s the company announcement…
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As we previously noted, last week the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proceeded with an online auction for BLM-controlled land in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (see 
In a rare sit-down interview, Chesapeake Energy’s CEO, Doug “the ax” Lawler told reporters the company is stable, strong and growing, and that is will not need to file for bankruptcy, as many had predicted would happen. Through hard work (and axing thousands of employees) Chesapeake has managed to cut an astonishing $10.9 billion worth of debt and leverage from its balance sheet. Hats off to Lawler. Total debt for the company has gone from $21 billion to $9 billion. At its height, Chessy employed 13,000 people. Today? Just 3,500 people. Hence our moniker for Lawler of “the ax” (see 
In June 2015, a full year ahead of Shell’s final investment decision (FID) to build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant complex in Beaver County, PA, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection issued the project air quality permits–which was a “critical” requirement for Shell before making their decision (see 
Last week MDN told you about Gulfport Energy’s deal to buy 85,000 acres of leases with 48 horizontal wells in Oklahoma’s SCOOP shale play in a $1.85 billion deal (see 
The Potter Township Board of Supervisors convened a public hearing on Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm that ended up going until 1 am Wednesday. The intent was to approve Shell’s request for permits to begin construction on the multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant. That didn’t happen. Instead, the supervisors decided to hold another hearing Wednesday night. They did, and that hearing went for over an hour, in closed-door session. At the conclusion, the supervisors made a couple of requests from Shell, which Shell agreed to. However, the supervisors are still not ready to approve the permits and instead asked for more paperwork to be filed–by both Shell and the radical, anti-fossil fuel Big Green group Clean Air Council (from Philadelphia). It seems the antis are attempting to stop this project cold–which should have the good citizens of Beaver County (indeed the entire northeast) outraged. At any rate, we’re sure the permits will be forthcoming–but now it won’t happen until sometime in January…
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has (or rather had) a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 90,000 acres of leases. In October Stone announced (a) it is selling its Marcellus/Utica assets to Tug Hill for $350 million, and (b) the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy (see 
Gulfport Energy is an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (“driller”) with its main operations in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Gulfport is considered one of the Top 5 Utica drillers (see 
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), has had its share of financial challenges. It has swapped out IOUs for new IOUs, converted debt into equity (shares of stock), sold off assets in other basins–a whole lotta stuff to keep on drilling (
We’re sure you haven’t missed the news that President-Elect Donald Trump (we love saying those words!) has nominated current Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson (T-Rex for short) to become the next Secretary of State–and fourth in line to the presidency. Tillerson is a great pick, for many reasons. He’s been doing deals in some 50 countries across the planet, dealing with some nasty customers during that time. T-Rex knows how to get things done–and he knows how to be a diplomat. He deals from a position of strength, not of weakness as our current SecState (John Kerry) and previous SecState (Hillary Clinton) have done. T-Rex will command attention and respect across the planet. And he’s a oil guy to boot–how great is that! Equally great news is Trump’s pick to run the Dept. of Energy–former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. We’ve always liked Rick (we supported him over Romney in 2012). Perry was the longest-serving governor of Texas, the biggest oil producing state in the country. He knows oil and gas, and he knows how to lead. What a breath of fresh air! Here’s some background on Trumps two key picks who have deep o&g experience…
EQT is feeling bullish about natural gas drilling in the northeast for 2017. The company has just released its 2017 operational forecast. What do we notice? First off, they plan to spend $1.5 billion next year, most of which ($1.3 billion) will be used to drill and complete new wells. That’s a whopping 50% increase from spending $1 billion this year. The next thing we notice is what type of wells they intend to drill: 119 Marcellus wells (76 in PA and 43 in WV); 81 Upper Devonian wells, which will be drilled on the same pads as deeper Marcellus wells, but only in PA; and 7 “deep Utica” exploratory wells. EQT also reworked a midstream deal with Williams in the Ohio Valley. Below are the exciting details of what’s ahead for EQT in 2017, including a second announcement from EQT Midstream about what’s ahead for the pipeline subsidiary, including details on how much they plan to spend on the Mountain Valley pipeline project in the coming year…
Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus, is going shopping for cash. In September Antero’s midstream (i.e. pipeline) subsidiary went shopping for cash and got $650 million (see 
Richard Zeits is an oil and gas, commodities, and long/short equity research analyst. He writes on the Seeking Alpha website and is, without a doubt, the best writer we read on o&g matters on the SA website. So when we spotted an article he’s written about Chesapeake Energy, that its “distress risk” (i.e. bankruptcy) is now “remote”–we took notice. It wasn’t long ago that many were betting the company would declare bankruptcy (see