39 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jun 26-Jul 2
New shale permits issued for Jun 26 – Jul 2 in the Marcellus/Utica saw a dramatic increase, thanks to a bump in Pennsylvania’s numbers. There were 39 new permits issued last week, way up from 11 issued the previous week. Last week’s permit tally included 30 new permits in Pennsylvania, 8 new permits in Ohio, and just 1 new permit in West Virginia. Coterra Energy scored the most new permits with a whopping 12 issued in Susquehanna County, PA (for two well pads). Range Resources had the second most new permits, with 7 permits issued in Washington County, PA (for one pad).
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In early June, shale drillers could, for the first time, begin to apply for permits to drill under (not on top of) Ohio state lands and state parks under newly formulated rules established by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission (see
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the Dionysus well pad (see 
In 2021, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief Judge for the Southern District of Texas, approved deals for Chesapeake Energy to pay $6.25 million to class members of the three royalty lawsuits brought by Pennsylvania landowners (roughly 15,000 class members) and another $2.9 million to the lawyers involved (see
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon is the smallest publicly-traded company operating in the Marcellus/Utica (we think). Yesterday, Epsilon announced a new $35 million line of credit from Frost Bank, which replaces its previous line of credit.
Earlier this year, British oil giant BP announced it would no longer publish its vaunted annual Statistical Review of World Energy, a publication it has issued each year since 1952 (see
The biggest of the Big Oil companies, including Shell, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil, are making it quite clear that natural gas is here for decades to come. Leftists tried to sell the B.S. line that natural gas is a “short-term bridge to greener energy sources.” When that lie began to fall apart, leftists got agitated and began to sputter nonsense about natgas being a whole lot dirtier than anybody thought. Again, their lies are falling on deaf ears–at least the ears of Big Oil. Unless the left can bully the world’s biggest governments into destroying some of the biggest companies in the world–oil and gas companies–the only opinion that matters is that of the oil companies themselves because they are the ones who will (or will not) do more drilling.
MDN recently reported that after eight years, Pennsylvania General Energy gave up on trying to build an environmentally safe wastewater injection well in Grant Township, Indiana County, PA (see
EOG Resources CEO Lloyd “Billy” Helms spoke at the J.P. Morgan Energy, Power and Renewables Conference in New York City yesterday. Helms had some very interesting comments on his company’s strategy moving forward–a strategy of keeping drilling activity in the Permian about even (not expanding), but increasing drilling activity in other plays, including the Ohio Utica.
Gulfport Energy issued a press release yesterday to announce that several unnamed stockholders, referred to as “certain stockholders,” are offering to sell 1.3 million company shares for $95 per share–for a total value of $123.5 million. If the market supports it, there may be an option to buy an additional 195,000 shares (another $18.5 million). Gulfport said it doesn’t benefit from the sale, but the company plans to purchase $25 million of the shares on offer as a buyback.
Encino Energy, now Ohio’s biggest oil producer, has agreed to donate $100,000 over the next five years to the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy Foundation to help fund community projects in Tuscarawas, Harrison, Carroll, and Belmont counties. The donation was announced at a press conference on Tuesday at Tappan Lake Marina in Harrison County. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) is an agency formed in 1933 to help control flooding and promote water conservation in the Muskingum River watershed area of Ohio, an area that covers 8,000 square miles. Over the years, MWCD has leased thousands of acres for Utica Shale drilling and cut deals to sell water to drillers for fracking. The result has been well over $100 million in revenue for MWCD–a true game-changer for the agency and the Ohio residents who live in that region.