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Court Orders Ohio Drillers to Produce Documents in Royalty Dispute
Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that appears to own the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see OH Landowners Sue Rice, Ascent, XTO, Gulfport for Drilling Too Deep). That lawsuit continues to grind on. Last week, a judge ruled the drillers being sued must produce certain documents sought by the plaintiff (rights owner).
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Friday afternoon, CNX Resources issued a press release to announce it is officially pulling out of the previously announced multi-billion-dollar clean ammonia manufacturing facility in southern West Virginia, part of the ARCH2 (Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub) project. Adams Fork Energy, Haldor Topsoe, and CNX announced the project in April with much fanfare (see 
New shale permits issued for Dec 4 – 10 in the Marcellus/Utica were up by 2 over the previous week. There were 27 new permits issued last week versus 25 issued two weeks ago. However, there was a major surprise! Last week’s permit tally included 8 new permits in Pennsylvania, 9 new permits in Ohio, and 10 new permits in West Virginia. The pattern is typically the opposite, with PA receiving the most permits and WV the least. The company receiving the most permits last week was EQT Corporation, with all 10 of WV’s permits all on the same well pad in Marion County.
Earlier this week MDN told you that two of Gulfport Energy’s major investors were conducting a sale of what amounts to 3.5% of the company’s stock (see 
Reuters is reporting a rumor, based on “people familiar with the matter,” that EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas driller in the United States (by production), is shopping its 25% non-operated interest in a number of producing gas wells in northeastern Pennsylvania for $3 billion. Chesapeake Energy is the majority owner and operator of the wells.
Spanish-owed Repsol owns (at last check) around 214,000 net acres of leases in the Marcellus Shale, primarily located in northeastern Pennsylvania in Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties. Early last year (in January 2022), Repsol closed on a deal to buy Rockdale Marcellus out of bankruptcy for $222 million, adding Rockdale’s 66 producing wells on 42,897 net acres to Resol’s extensive Marcellus portfolio (see 
Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 with a new board and top management. In January of this year, the company appointed a new CEO, John Reinhart, the former President and CEO of M-U driller Montage Resources Corporation before Southwestern Energy gobbled up that company (see 
Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility recently received Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service (see 
Hart Energy keeps the hits rolling, publishing interviews and articles from the recent DUG Appalachia event held in Pittsburgh in November. The latest is a transcript of an interview between Hart Energy’s editorial director and Encino Energy’s CTO. According to the CTO, the company uses “machine learning” to perfect its oil drilling in the northern Ohio Utica, and it’s paying off. Encino is looking to expand in the Ohio Utica — looking to lease more and drill more.
One of the speakers at the recent Hart Energy DUG Appalachia event in Pittsburgh was Douglas Kris, senior vice president of Diversified Energy. For years, we have highlighted Diversified’s “contrarian” business model (
Greylock Energy is headquartered in Charleston, WV, with offices in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wyoming and operations scattered throughout Appalachia and the Rockies. The company’s assets comprise more than 1.19 million acres, about 6,700 wells, including the operation of 4,000 wells throughout Appalachia (shale and conventional) and 2,600 miles of pipeline. Ryan Deaderick, executive vice president and COO of Greylock Energy, spoke to Hart Energy editorial director Jordan Blum on the sidelines of the recent Hart Energy DUG Appalachia conference in Pittsburgh. Deaderick said his company has expanded and added assets in the Rockies over the past 18 months. He said the company is “always looking for diversity of investment.”