NOG & INR Adjust Ownership Split of Antero’s Ohio Utica Assets
In December, Antero Resources announced a deal to sell its Ohio Utica assets to a partnership of Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) and Infinity Natural Resources (INR) for $1.2 billion in cash (see NOG & INR Partner to Buy Antero Resources’ Ohio Utica for $1.2B). The deal includes 71,000 net acres concentrated in Ohio’s Guernsey, Belmont, and Harrison counties, producing 133 MMcfe/d (81% gas, 19% liquids) from 255 laterals. The midstream (pipeline) part of the deal includes approximately 141 miles of wholly owned midstream gathering lines and approximately 90 miles of water lines. Yesterday, NOG and INR announced that they are tweaking the arrangement, with INR boosting its ownership share in the deal from 51% to 60%. Read More “NOG & INR Adjust Ownership Split of Antero’s Ohio Utica Assets”
Hedging is the practice of locking in a price now to sell gas you will produce in the future. We’ve written a fair bit about hedging (
EQT Corporation delivered its latest quarterly update yesterday for the fourth quarter of 2025 (and with a look at what’s coming in 2026). CEO Toby Rice opened the earnings call by emphasizing “2025 was another stellar year for EQT, one in which we were able to clearly demonstrate the power of our platform” and highlighted the company’s focus on operational excellence, financial strength, and scale. Rice stated, “Production consistently topped expectations throughout 2025, driven by compression project outperformance and robust well productivity.” Rice continued, “Winter Storm Fern created extremely challenging weather conditions over the past several weeks, but seamless coordination between our midstream, upstream, and gas marketing teams resulted in negligible impact to EQT’s production.” EQT production for 4Q25 was 609 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent), or 6.62 Bcfe/d. 
Yesterday, CNX Resources announced it is issuing new “notes” (we call them IOUs) to raise money to buy back and redeem other notes coming due soon. The old notes are due in 2029. The new notes would be due and payable in 2034. CNX is “rolling over debt,” a common practice among large corporations, especially in capital-intensive industries such as energy and natural gas production. The company hopes to raise $500 million with the new notes to pay off the old ones. The question is, why do companies do this? Why keep rolling over debt every few years? 
Antero Resources Corporation has reached a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the state of West Virginia to resolve Clean Air Act violations at 242 oil and gas facilities in West Virginia and Ohio. To address unauthorized volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, Antero will invest approximately $5.8 million in system improvements and monitoring, reducing annual emissions by over 1,100 tons. The company will also pay a $3.8 million civil penalty and spend $1.5 million to permanently plug and remediate abandoned wells in WV. Total price tag: $11.1 million. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received a combined 24 new drilling permits last week, Feb. 2 – 8, up 2 from the permits issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania issued 10 new permits, Ohio issued 10, and West Virginia issued 4. The drillers receiving new permits last week included: Arsenal Resources, Ascent Resources, Blackhill Energy, EQT, Expand Energy, and Infinity Natural Resources. 
Antero Resources, the largest Marcellus/Utica (M-U) driller in West Virginia, released its Q4 2025 update yesterday. In 2025, Antero Resources underwent a “transformational expansion” highlighted by the acquisition of HG Energy, the largest acquisition in Antero’s history, which the company closed on just last week (see 
Capital & Main is a left-leaning news outlet based in California. The publication has repeatedly targeted CNX Resources to smear the company and its Radical Transparency initiative. In September, we brought you Capital & Main’s latest hit piece alleging CNX’s operations are polluting and causing ill health for those who live nearby. The article also said CNX’s drilling program is anything but transparent (see 
Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in “electric” fracking — using natural gas from the well pad (instead of diesel fuel) to power turbines to create electricity that drives fracking pumps. We’ve written about Evolution’s e-fracking work in the Marcellus/Utica for years (
In December, MDN told you that three anti-shale drilling groups—the PA Council of Trout Unlimited, the Keystone Trails Association, and the Responsible Drilling Alliance—requested the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hold a hearing on the Chapter 105 permit requested for a 3.9-mile shale gas access road and staging area proposed by PA General Energy (PGE) in the Loyalsock State Forest (see 
Yesterday, Expand Energy announced it is moving its corporate headquarters from Oklahoma City, OK, to Houston, TX. That was the headline and lead in the announcement. And oh, by the way, the company’s very successful CEO, the guy who guided the merger of Chesapeake Energy with Southwestern Energy and has made the resulting Expand Energy *the largest* natural gas producer in the country, Nick Dell’Osso, has “stepped down” effective immediately. Talk about burying the lede! The press release and just about every news story you will read imply that Nick didn’t want to move to Houston, so he’s cashing in. Not so. What the press release doesn’t tell you is that the board terminated (fired) Dell’Osso last Friday. The question is, why? 
We stumbled across a mention of a lawsuit (Kriley v. XTO Energy) that we previously were not aware of—a lawsuit that had its beginning back in 2019 and involves seven landowners in Butler County, PA. The landowners claim that XTO Energy (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil) systematically underpaid natural gas royalties. Over the past six years, the lawsuit has evolved and was certified as a class action in late 2025, meaning it has expanded from affecting seven landowners to potentially hundreds. XTO, in its latest court filing, is attempting to limit the class action. 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the February 7 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC approved and/or renewed 42 general water use permits in December and 32 general permits in January (74 combined) for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Clearfield, Clinton, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties.