Olympus Energy Gets Project Canary Cert – Produces 100% RSG NatGas
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) contracted with Project Canary last December to monitor methane emissions from both the company’s drilling operations and the company’s pipeline operations (see Olympus Using Proj Canary to Monitor Drilling & Pipes for Methane). Project Canary had a close look and yesterday announced it has granted Olympus its highest rating across the company’s entire asset base. Olympus can now boast that 100% of the natural gas it produces is RSG gas–responsibly sourced gas.
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Ever hear the old saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?” That seems to be the philosophy for EQT Corporation with respect to the compensation it will receive from Equitrans Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Newer readers may not know this, but back in 2018 EQT spun off its pipeline division into a brand new, standalone company, renamed Equitrans Midstream (see 
American Energy Partners, Inc. (AEPT), based in Allentown, PA, is a small but diversified company. They have their fingers in a number of different oil and gas pies, including subsidiaries in drilling, remediation, water, valuation services, and education. Add one more to the list: radioactive waste. AEPT recently announced it has purchased Austin Master Services, a company that services the Marcellus/Utica industry (and other industries) with radiological waste management solutions, including remediation, decontamination & decommissioning (D&D), and transport.
Not all that long ago Cabot Oil & Gas (now Coterra Energy), Southwestern Energy, BKV Corporation, and Diversified Energy were all pure play drillers focused just on the Marcellus and/or Utica Shales. Today all of them own assets in other basins in addition to the M-U. However, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well (back in 2004), Range Resources, has gone the other way. Range used to own assets outside of the M-U but has, for over two years, been a pure play driller laser-focused on only the M-U. According to CEO Jeff Ventura, Range plans to keep it that way–laser-focused focused on the M-U.
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. There have been plenty of rumors swirling about Ascent, one that says Gulfport Energy is interested in selling to Ascent (see 
We’re catching up the permits issued report, but not for last week. This report is for permits issued two weeks ago–June 27 through July 3. The numbers increased from the prior week (27) to 35. Pennsylvania issued the lion’s share of new permits, 25, with most of them going to Olympus Energy (12 permits in Washington County), and a significant number going to a name we’ve 
Sources whispering to Bloomberg say that Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), is having exploratory talks with Encino Energy about selling itself to/merging with Encino. In March the rumor mill said Gulfport was in talks to sell itself to Ascent Resources (see 
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t typically 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. In something of a shakeup, the company announced it is getting both a new CEO and a new CFO beginning tomorrow.
S.T.L. Resources, LLC, an independent oil and gas company with headquarters outside of Pittsburgh, announced yesterday that the company has purchased the remaining assets of Tilden Marcellus for an undisclosed sum. Tilden filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February (see 
The oil and gas industry historically has been subject to wide swings in profits and losses. Some years are up, others are down. Ours is a “boom and bust” industry–let’s just be honest about it. Oil and gas are both commodities and are driven, largely, by market conditions. When the government interferes by threatening banks to avoid investing in O&G, when there’s a big increase in demand due to political events (avoiding Russian O&G because of the unprovoked Ukraine war), and when there’s not enough supply to meet the demand, prices skyrocket, as they have done over the past six months. The recent up-cycle has been good for Marcellus/Utica drillers and the bottom line.
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) is a special court set up in PA to hear appeals of decisions made by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In February 2021, a landowner (three people living at the same address) in Susquehanna County, PA, filed a lawsuit with the EHB against the DEP and Coterra Energy (formerly known as Cabot Oil & Gas) alleging Coterra’s drilling program nearby had led to polluting their water well. As of last week, the case was dismissed and the Pittsburgh attorney for the landowner (for the first time ever) was sanctioned by the EHB.
When drilling for natural gas, other substances come out of the borehole along with methane (CH4). Some wells produce NGLs (natural gas liquids) which are gases with other molecular structures, like ethane (C2H6), butane (C4H10), and propane (C3H8). Sometimes crude oil, condensate, and natural gasoline come out–all of which are liquids. Water from the depths (called brine) also comes out of the hole. When the pressure of natgas coming from the hole is high, as it is in the beginning when a well is first drilled, liquids come out of the hole along with the gas with little or no issue. However, as pressure decreases, the liquids can fall back down the well and begin to accumulate–a condition called liquid loading. Plunger lift is a technology used to solve the issue of liquid loading.