Paret Mining Buys 10K Acres of Leases, 150 O&G Wells in Kentucky
We spotted a press release about a “wealthy Haitian-American businessman” buying “a vast 10,000-acre oil reserve in Bowling Green Kentucky.” What caught our eye was the location and the extra detail that the assets purchased included “150 oil and natural gas wells.” A few bells began to go off for us. Kentucky is not known as a hotbed of shale drilling activity. The Marcellus/Utica does not extend under the Bluegrass State. However, as we wrote back in 2017, Kentucky has the Berea Sandstone, which contains oil deposits (see Fracking Comes to Kentucky – Encore Drills First Horizontal Oil Wells).
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The 295-mile Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) spans New England from the Canadian border to pipeline connections in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. The system began operations in 1999 and is located between three major pipeline networks originating in Canada and the U.S. TC Energy owns 61.7% of PNGTS. The remaining 38.3 percent is owned by Northern New England Investment Company. At least until yesterday, when PNGTS was spun off into its own standalone company, now owned by the evil BlackRock. 
A major change in ownership is coming for gas-fired power plants through the Marcellus/Utica region as well as New England. Quantum Capital Group announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cogentrix Energy, an independent power producer, from another investment firm (Carlyle) for $3 billion. The Cogentrix portfolio is comprised of 5.3 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power plants located throughout PJM (the M-U region), ERCOT (Texas), and ISO-NE (New England). M-U molecules feed most power plants in PJM and ISO-NE, ergo our molecules will feed the plants changing hands.
In November 2018, under intense pressure from activist investors, EQT split itself into two companies: EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream (see 
Last November, Tellurian, a company founded by Charif Souki, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission warning investors that its financial situation raised “substantial doubt” that the company could continue as a going concern (see 
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (with assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Last September, Diversified’s CEO Rusty Huston, in an interview with Forbes, signaled that he would be looking to buy more assets outside of the Marcellus/Utica — specifically along the Gulf Coast (see 
In April, EQT Corporation and Equinor (formerly known as Statoil) announced a deal to swap land in Pennsylvania and Ohio (see 
Antero Midstream, a separate company from Antero Resources (at least on paper, although it is managed by the same people), issued a press release yesterday to announce it had purchased a bolt-on acquisition of gathering and compression assets in the Marcellus Shale for $70 million from Summit Midstream Partners. The assets acquired include two compressor stations and 48 miles of high-pressure gas-gathering pipelines located in West Virginia.
UGI, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations in the Marcellus and one of PA’s largest utility companies, hinted last summer that it was looking to sell or spin off its propane subsidiary into a new company (see