Energy Companies

Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies

Big News! Chesapeakes Hires One New Employee – a Lawyer
February 5, 2014February 5, 2014

Stop Press! This is really big news… After laying off some 1,200 people last year (see The Great Chesapeake Massacre: Lawler Fires 800 People in One Day), Chesapeake Energy’s CEO Doug Lawler has hired one new employee–a lawyer. And not just any lawyer, but the former Secretary of the Environment for the state of Oklahoma. In unrelated news, the handful of people who still work at Chesapeake have once again voted their company onto the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list–for a seventh straight year. Right. We wonder whose hands were greased for that one? Anyone notice big full page ads for Chessy now appearing in Fortune?

Below are a pair of recent press releases from Chesapeake, announcing the appointment of Miles Tolbert to lead the environmental health and safety group at Chessy’s HQ in Oklahoma City (rumor is he has an entire empty floor of offices to himself), and the announcement about the faux Fortune 100 list…
Read More “Big News! Chesapeakes Hires One New Employee – a Lawyer”
Atlas Energy | Chevron | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

The Unconventional Rise & Sale of Atlas Energy
February 5, 2014February 5, 2014

Atlas Energy, aka Atlas Resource Partners and Atlas Pipeline Partners, is a Pittsburgh-based exploration and production (E&P) and midstream company with active drilling operations not only in the Marcellus/Utica region but another four resource plays as well. The company has an unconventional history, to say the least. The entrepreneurial Cohen family from Philadelphia bought a major stake in the company in the late 1990s and installed son Jonathan in Pittsburgh to help run it. The Cohens had no special knowledge or foresight but seemed to be in the right place at the right time (the Marcellus Shale), because in 2010 the Cohens sold Atlas Energy to Chevron for a pile of cash (see India’s RIL Loses Bidding War for Atlas Energy – $4.3 Billion Deal with Chevron Goes Forward).

An interesting story about the entrepreneurial Cohen family, the businesses they’ve founded or grown, and the rise of Atlas Energy as a major driller in the Marcellus…
Read More “The Unconventional Rise & Sale of Atlas Energy”
American Energy Partners | Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale | XTO

McClendon Confirms 3 New Utica Shale Deals: Hess, XTO, Paloma
February 4, 2014February 4, 2014

Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy continues its rapid expansion. Aubrey is raising money like crazy–and spending it like crazy too. Last week Aubrey landed another half billion dollars to spend in the Utica (see McClendon’s New Company Gets Another Half Billion $ for Utica). Then he spent it! The rumor was the mystery buyer of Hess’ 74,000 Utica Shale acres they sold for $924 million last week was McClendon (see Hess Sells 74,000 OH Utica Shale Dry Gas Acres to Mystery Buyer). It’s no longer a mystery–American Energy verified it is the buyer of the Hess acreage.

But hey, that was last week. It’s a new week, so it’s time for a new deal for Aubrey and American Energy. And right on cue, we have one: XTO Energy has announced they’ve done a deal whereby American Energy will fund 100 percent of XTO’s near-term drilling costs in a “core area” of 55,000 Utica Shale acres. In return, American Energy will get ownership of 30,000 net acres of XTO’s holdings in three Ohio counties. Yesterday Aubrey said he’s cut three deals recently–Hess, XTO and Paloma Partners. Between the three deals, Aubrey says he’s picked up another 130,000 acres in the Utica in the past week. The man is on a tear…
Read More “McClendon Confirms 3 New Utica Shale Deals: Hess, XTO, Paloma”
CNX Resources | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies

CONSOL Reports Record Gas Production in 4Q13, Bumps Up Guidance
February 4, 2014February 4, 2014

On Friday CONSOL Energy (and its CNX Gas division) issued an update on activity for the fourth quarter of 2013. The company reported net income of $738 million, but the majority of that ($591 million) came from “discontinued operations”–which means from the five WV coal mines they recently sold (see CONSOL Sells More Coal Mines, Investing $24B(!) in Shale Drilling). The gas division had a record 4Q13, producing 48.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent (Bcfe). Although it’s a 4Q13 update, CONSOL also hauls out the crystal ball and says that for 2014 the company estimates it will produce 215 – 235 Bcfe of natural gas. In addition, they’ve stuck their necks way out and say that for 2015 and 2016 those numbers will go up an average 30% each year.

And so, like a broken record, we once again repeat that CONSOL continues its transformation from coal energy producer to natural gas energy producer. Here’s the update from Friday:
Read More “CONSOL Reports Record Gas Production in 4Q13, Bumps Up Guidance”
Crosstex Energy | Devon Energy | Energy Companies | Energy Services | EnLink Midstream | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pipelines | Processing Plants

A Peek Behind the Curtain of Crosstex/Devon Midstream Marriage
February 4, 2014February 4, 2014

For a number of months, MDN has told you the story/news of the merger between Crosstex Energy (a Dallas, TX company) and Devon Energy (Oklahoma City, OK company). It’s an important story because both have a major presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. Essentially Devon Energy, a driller with a major midstream division, bought out Crosstex, a midstream company, and merged the two operations leaving Crosstex in command of the newly created midstream entity. The newly formed subsidiary company was recently named EnLink Midstream (see Crosstex Energy Gets a Name Change, Merger with Devon Proceeds).

An article in the Dallas Morning News about the merger caught our eye because it profiles the people involved and how the merger happened. We’re not sure that the story reveals any new, salient news about the deal–but it does reveal the depth of experience and character of the people involved. And it inspires confidence that this particular merger, a merger in which no one lost their job, portends very good things for the northeast where EnLink will continue to grow and expand. We’d call it a “here’s why you should feel good about this merger and doing business with these guys” kind of story…
Read More “A Peek Behind the Curtain of Crosstex/Devon Midstream Marriage”
Elk County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Seneca Resources | Wastewater

New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA
February 3, 2014February 3, 2014

Looks like more injection wells are on the way in Pennsylvania. Injection wells are used to pump leftover frack fluid (and brine, naturally occurring salt water that comes of the hole longer after fracking is done) deep underground for safe disposal. There are a lot of injection wells in Ohio, and PA drillers who don’t recycle or find another way of disposing of wastewater typically ship it to OH. (Vol. 3 of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook, out in a week, contains what we believe the most comprehensive list of frack wastewater and landfills in existence. Pre-order a copy now!)

Seneca Resources has just received federal approval to convert an old vertical natural gas well in Elk County, PA into an injection disposal well. The Elk injection well will pump up to 60,000 gallons per day of wastewater and brine into the Elk 3 sandstone formation. However, before they begin operations at the Elk injection well, Seneca still needs an approval from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection…
Read More “New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA”
Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation | Soil | Statewide PA

Range Floats Plan to Use Drill Cuttings to Build Roads
February 3, 2014February 3, 2014

This one is sure to set the anti-frackers into a tailspin. Range Resources has applied to the PA State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin using drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt that comes out of the ground) as an “aggregate” or material to build roads to drilling sites. There’s nothing wrong with drill cuttings, but sometimes there are low levels of radioactivity found in them–far below any kind of health threat. But we can see the headlines now: Radioactive Roads! Run for the Hills! Drillers Want to Poison Mother Earth! That’s how the shrill anti-fossil fuel lobby will try and spin this.

We’re sure Range knows they’ve opened a can of worms with this one. Let’s see how it all plays out in the coming 60 days, the time period authorized by the DEP to receive public comments on the proposed plan…
Read More “Range Floats Plan to Use Drill Cuttings to Build Roads”
Devon Energy | Energy Companies

Utica Driller Devon Energy Picks Up 2 New Board Members
January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

Devon Energy announced earlier this week that they’ve added a pair of drilling industry veterans to their board of directors. The additions are “immediate” and include Barbara M. Baumann, 58, a former BP Amoco executive who currently serves as president and owner of Cross Creek Energy Corporation, and John E. Bethancourt, 62, a retired Chevron executive. Devon is a major acreage holder in the Utica Shale with 157,000 acres under lease.

Does this sudden, with no warning, addition signal problems or issues? We don’t think so, but we don’t know. We haven’t come across any scuttlebutt about Devon–they seem to be doing well, focusing largely on oily shale plays, including the Utica. A couple of years ago the company picked up $2.2 billion from Chinese oil major Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration Production Corp. in a joint venture deal (see China Makes $2.2B Investment in U.S. Shale, Including Utica). Last October Devon more or less bought out Crosstex Energy (see Crosstex Energy Gets a Name Change, Merger with Devon Proceeds). Seems like everything is going well, full speed ahead with no corporate raiders lurking in the background. Whew. Here’s the board announcement from earlier this week:
Read More “Utica Driller Devon Energy Picks Up 2 New Board Members”
Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Vol 2 Photojournal for Cabot Well in Susquehanna County, PA
January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

A quick note to let you know that tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 1) you can once again download Photojournal of a Pennsylvania Natural Gas Well: Book 1: Ground Preparation. It’s a really cool book of photos (and captions) taken by a non-professional photographer, Susquehanna County resident Janice Gavern. MDN recently reported on Janice’s project to document a Cabot Oil & Gas shale well being drilled just outside of Montrose, PA, close to (yes) Dimock (see PA Resident Snaps 8,000 Pictures of Cabot Well Construction).

Jancie has been a busy beaver. She’s now posted her second volume in this multi-volume series: Photojournal of a Pennsylvania Natural Gas Well: Book 2 Site Set-up. You can grab a copy of this volume for free on Sunday, Feb. 2. Be sure to grab them while they’re free! It will save you $9.99 (or if you like, download it and pay the $9.99 to give Jan a little bit of money for her efforts).

What if you don’t own a Kindle reader? No problem. You can download and install a Kindle reader application on your computer, smartphone–just about any device you have that connects to the internet. So don’t lack of a Kindle stop you from grabbing a copy of Jan’s books.
American Energy Partners | American Energy Utica | Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Hess Sells 74,000 OH Utica Shale Dry Gas Acres to Mystery Buyer
January 30, 2014February 4, 2014

Looks like the end of 2014 came in January of 2014 for Hess. On Oct 30, 2013 Hess’ Executive VP and President of Worldwide Exploration & Production, Greg Hill, said that Hess was working on figuring out their Utica Shale acreage and where the wet gas area is located so they could make decisions about where they will and won’t drill. Hill said they would make their final decision “at the end of 2014 once we finish delineation” (see Hess Officials Talk About the Utica on 3Q13 Earnings Call). Yesterday Hess announced they have struck a deal to sell to sell 74,000 Utica Shale dry gas acres to an unnamed buyer for $924 million. End of 2014 (and Christmas) came early for Hess. Why sell now? And, who was the buyer? MDN thinks we know (we speculate below).

Hess owns a 100% interest in 95,000 Utica Shale acres, and a 50% interest (in a joint venture deal with CONSOL Energy) for another 65,000 Utica acres. In consulting the Hess map of their Utica acreage below (from a November 2013 investor presentation), you can get a pretty good idea of where the acreage they’ve sold is probably located. Much of Hess’ 100%-owned acreage is in the “dry gas” area on the map–our money is that most of that acreage is what got sold. No doubt landowners will soon receive notifications if they are among those being traded to another drilling team. Below is the Hess announcement (which is brief), the map we located which helps shed light on the brief announcement, and our speculation on why they sold now, and who purchased…
Read More “Hess Sells 74,000 OH Utica Shale Dry Gas Acres to Mystery Buyer”
American Energy Partners | American Energy Utica | Energy Companies | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

McClendon’s New Company Gets Another Half Billion $ for Utica
January 30, 2014January 30, 2014

Former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon’s new company, American Energy Partners, keeps the money rollin’ in. Last fall AEP lined up a big pile of cash to be used to purchase leases in the Utica Shale (see McClendon Gets a Little Help ($1.7B) from His Friends in OH Utica). In December, Aubrey floated 100 million “units” (i.e. stock) in an effort to raise up to $2 billion more (see McClendon Plan to Raise Additional $2B in “Unit” Offering). No word on how that effort is going.

In the meantime, time’s a wastin’, so Aubrey has raised another $500 million in private equity to help fund Utica Shale ventures (see the story below). MDN wonders, is it just coincidence that AEP’s brief announcement was issued yesterday, on the same day that Hess announced their sale of 74,000 Utica Shale acres to a mystery buyer? Interesting, no?…
Read More “McClendon’s New Company Gets Another Half Billion $ for Utica”
Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources Will Spend $2B+ in Marcellus/Utica in 2014
January 30, 2014January 30, 2014

Antero Resources continues to be in the news. Over the past couple of days MDN has reported on Antero’s recently released production results for their Utica Shale wells (see Another Antero Utica Well Top of the Heap: IP Rate of 40.2 Mmcf/d! and More on Antero’s Record Shattering Utica Shale Wells). On the heels of their 4Q13 update from a couple of days ago, Antero yesterday released their 2014 capital expenditure budget. The company plans to spend $2.6 billion in 2014. Of that, they will spend $1.8 billion for drilling and completion, $600 million for expanding midstream facilities and $200 million for core leasehold acreage acquisitions.

Get this: All of the $1.8 billion drilling budget will be spent on drilling in the northeast–75% of it in the Marcellus, and 25% of it in the Utica. And the $200 million for new leases will be spent in both the Marcellus and Utica as well. It’s a massive amount of money flowing into the northeast ($2 billion or more)–all from a single driller. Here’s the Antero budget update issued yesterday:
Read More “Antero Resources Will Spend $2B+ in Marcellus/Utica in 2014”
Energy Companies | Gulfport Energy | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Gulfport’s James Palm to Retire in 2 Weeks, Search on for New CEO
January 30, 2014January 30, 2014

Gulfport Energy announced yesterday that CEO James Palm will retire as of February 15 (just two weeks from now). Gulfport is one of the most important (and increasingly prolific) drillers in the Utica Shale. In 2013 Gulfport stole many headlines with their southeastern Ohio Utica shale wells breaking records left and right (see Gulfport’s New Record-Breaking Well in Belmont Cnty – 30.3 Mmcf/d).

Palm has been CEO of Gulfport for the past eight years. Was he pushed? No indications of that. It appears he’s simply exiting while Gulfport, under his expert guidance, is at a high point. No doubt he leaves the company as a very wealthy man. Here’s the brief Palm retirement announcement from Gulfport:
Read More “Gulfport’s James Palm to Retire in 2 Weeks, Search on for New CEO”
Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

More on Antero’s Record Shattering Utica Shale Wells
January 29, 2014January 29, 2014

Yesterday MDN brought you the news that Antero had turned in some of the highest producing wells–ever–in the Utica Shale (see Another Antero Utica Well Top of the Heap: IP Rate of 40.2 Mmcf/d!). We got the context of their announcement slightly wrong, and admitted it at the top of that article. We believed one of those wells to be the #1 overall producing well in the Utica–but such is not the case. As we explained, Antero is now converting the production output from their wells into “gas equivalent” because many of these wells produce a lot of natural gas liquids, including ethane, butane and propane. Even though we got it slightly wrong, the wells are still awesomely impressive for the their record-breaking output.

MDN thanks our friend and intrepid reporter Bob Downing at the Akron Beacon Journal for pointing out the change-up in how Antero reports its numbers (he gave us a courtesy call). Bob went on to research the Antero announcement and found that three of their recently announced wells are ranked in the Utica “top 10” most productive wells overall. Although the Antero wells may not be #1 in producing the most methane (“dry gas”), they produce an enormous amount of NGLs, which are a lot more profitable than plain methane! Here’s a pair of reports from Bob from yesterday:
Read More “More on Antero’s Record Shattering Utica Shale Wells”
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jefferson County (OH) | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio

OH Judge Says Filing Paperwork is Enough to Extend Lease
January 29, 2014January 29, 2014

Ohio landowners should be aware of an important court case just decided that says, in essence, filing paperwork is enough proof of a driller’s intent that a lease can be extended beyond the initial signing period. Several landowners in Jefferson County, OH signed a lease with Fortuna Energy in 2006 that was later sold to Chesapeake Energy (in 2010). The lease was for a 5-year period. Three days before the end of the lease Chesapeake filed a Declaration of Pooled Unit (DPU) with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. That is, they told ODNR in essence “here’s a group of properties we intend to drill on soon” requesting permission to “pool” them together into a drilling unit. That simple act was enough proof, according to a U.S. District Court judge, to allow Chesapeake to extend the original lease beyond the original 5 years.

And so now the landowners are stuck waiting for Chesapeake to actually do something other than file paperwork. Good luck with that…
Read More “OH Judge Says Filing Paperwork is Enough to Extend Lease”
Energy Companies | Energy Services | Gulfport Energy | Industrywide Issues | M&A | MarkWest Energy | Ohio | Ohio Gathering | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide OH | Summit Midstream

Summit Midstream Closes Deal to Buy 40% Stake in Ohio Gathering
January 29, 2014January 29, 2014

Last December MDN told you that Summit Midstream was buying out Gulfport Energy’s share of the Ohio Gathering pipeline and processing system (see Summit Midstream Buys Gulfport’s Interest in Ohio Gathering). As we said at the time, the deal appears complicated on paper with multiple names (like Blackhawk Midstream), but the bottom line was/is that Summit will be the 40% owner and MarkWest Energy will remain the 60% owner of the Ohio Gathering system.

Yesterday, in an announcement by Summit that’s equally dense with details (likely written by lawyers), Summit announced they’ve closed the Ohio Gathering deal. That’s the sum total of this announcement–that the deal is now done:
Read More “Summit Midstream Closes Deal to Buy 40% Stake in Ohio Gathering”