Southwestern Floats $1.1B of New Stock, Offers to Buy Back IOUs
Earlier this week MDN told you that Southwestern Energy, a major Marcellus/Utica driller, has cut deals with its banks and debholders to extend out the due date on loans coming due (see Southwestern Energy Buys More Time with Banks, Debtholders). Southwestern continues to aggressively manage its money and balance sheet. Yesterday the company announced it is floating $1.1 billion of new stock and plans to buy back outstanding notes (IOUs). We don’t pretend to understand why they would extend the due dates earlier this week and now attempt to buy back the IOUs. Perhaps it’s different sets of debt? Someone with a finance degree help us out here! At any rate, here’s yesterday’s set of announcements from Southwestern…
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Can a single petrochemical facility, like Shell’s proposed ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, “rebirth” all of Pennsylvania’s moribund manufacturing base? That would be a resounding “Yes!” according to Marcellus Shale Coalition president Dave Spigelmyer and Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association president Dave Taylor. Writing a column in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the two Daves make the case for just how big a hairy deal the coming Shell cracker in PA really is…
Yesterday Eclipse Resources, a Marcellus/Utica pure play driller headquartered in State College, PA (but drilling mostly in Ohio) released a mid-year update on its drilling program. It’s good news, for a change! Earlier this year Eclipse said they would drill only one new well and that they were curtailing, or shutting in, production from some of their wells (see 
There was lots of cracker talk at the first Northeast U.S. & Canada Petrochemical Construction Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh yesterday. According to NGI’s ace reporter for Shale Daily, Jamison Cocklin, excitement over the Shell cracker announcement from a few weeks ago was “palpable” at yesterday’s event. There was plenty of talk about the Shell cracker–but the talk coming from the event that interests MDN is talk about both the PTT Global Chemical cracker planned for Ohio, AND the Braskem cracker planned for West Virginia. These other two world class cracker plants (similar in size and scope to Shell’s project) “remain on track.” Now that is news!…
In May MDN told you that the Penn Township (in Westmoreland County, PA) zoning board voted to refuse to grant a permit to Apex Energy to build a DEP-permitted well pad in the town (see 
Rex Energy Corporation, one of our favorite smaller Marcellus/Utica drillers, issued an update on their Marcellus drilling program on Tuesday. You may recall that just last week Rex announced they were selling off the rest of their non-Marcellus acreage to become a pure play driller (see 
The coming Shell ethane cracker plant complex in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, will create a lot of jobs–some in the near-term, but many in the medium-to-longer term. The plant won’t be complete for another five years. Between now and then it will take 6,000 temporary workers to build it. Once built, the plant will take 600 permanent employees to run it. Is Beaver County and the greater Pittsburgh region ready for that kind of jobs challenge? As of today, the answer would be “no.” But leaders in the area are working on it…
Ultra Petroleum, based in Houston, TX, is an independent exploration and production (E&P) company mainly focused on drilling in the Green River Basin of Wyoming. Ultra also drills for oil in the Uinta Basin/Three Rivers area in Utah. In addition, Ultra maintains a position in the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale with leases on 184,000 gross (91,000 net) acres–no small amount. They aren’t currently drilling on their Marcellus acreage, but if prices change, they likely would. That is, if they make it through bankruptcy. At the end of April Ultra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
Last December Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see 
Shell has long mystified us when it comes to shale. Shell has been involved in the Marcellus Shale for years with its SWEPI (Shell Western E&P) division–at one time with 900,000 acres under lease. But in 2014 Shell took an ax to its Marcellus drilling program (see 
Rice Energy and farmers in rural Belmont County, OH have a great relationship. You can tell by the way each talks about the other. Farmers love Rice because the company is responsible and works with farmers to protect their land and farming livelihood. And the farms of Belmont County have treated Rice Energy well–very well. Yesterday MDN reported on first quarter 2016 production in Ohio (see 
The good vibes are still reverberating following Shell’s announcement that they will move forward with building a $3+ billion ethane cracker in Monaca, PA (see 
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, New York AG Eric Schneiderman and several other Democrat AGs have ganged up like a pack a hyenas with saliva dripping from their legal fangs at the prospect of bringing down one of the biggest preys imaginable–Exxon Mobil. Healey, Schneiderman and others are making fantastical claims that Exxon “knew” that burning their evil, filthy, nasty oil and natural gas is causing Mom Earth to warm up, so they’ve been serving subpoenas to Exxon to turn over ever piece of communication the company has ever had, so they can build a case against Exxon’s free speech (see 
In 2014, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Range Resources a whopping $4.15 million for violations related to several of Range’s wastewater impoundments in Washington County, PA (see