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WV Judge in Landowner Royalty Lawsuit Points Gun at EQT Lawyer
This is one of those more bizarre court cases we’ve heard about. In April 2021, MDN reported that a group of West Virginia landowners/rights owners filed a claim against EQT, alleging the company had allowed leases to lapse, then at a later date, reentered their property and drilled new wells without permission (see Federal Judge Allows EQT Trespass Lawsuit in WV to Advance). The case, Huey v. EQT, has been in and out of federal court. A West Virginia Second Judicial Circuit Judge, hearing a related part of the case, is accused of pulling out a gun and leaving it on his bench pointing at the attorney representing EQT, who was, understandably, quite nervous.
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For the week of July 4-10, the three Marcellus/Utica states issued 37 permits to drill new shale wells. Pennsylvania led the way, as it typically does, by issuing 25 new permits. Three PA drillers tied with six permits each, all six (in each case) on the same pad: Olympus Energy in Allegheny County, Repsol in Bradford County, and Clean Energy Exploration in Tioga County. Ohio issued five new permits, with four going to Encino Energy for a single pad in Carroll County. West Virginia issued seven new permits, all of them to Antero Resources in Doddridge County but spread across three pads.
Wow! What a difference two years can make. At the dawn of the pandemic, the share price for publicly traded oil and gas stocks (in particular Marcellus/Utica drillers) was in the basement. With the pandemic now in the rearview mirror (we hope), and demand increasing for both oil and natural gas, the price of oil and gas has skyrocketed, and along with it, O&G companies are raking in the cash. How are M-U drillers using their newfound piles of cash to compensate investors?
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 
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 
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.