Titan Energy Sells Marcellus Assets, Buyer Rapidly Expanding
In February, MDN told you that Titan Energy, which used to be known as Atlas Energy/Resource Partners, was listing what appeared to be the rest of the acreage they still own on the Appalachian basin–some 494,229 acres–including rights for drilling in the Marcellus (see Titan Energy Puts 494K Appalachian Acres Up for Sale). On Friday, Titan announced it has signed an agreement to sell the acreage, along with 8,400 oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, New York and West Virginia, for $84.2 million to Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO). Yes, the vast majority of those wells are conventional (vertical only) and not shale wells. In fact, we’re not sure any of the wells are shale wells. However, Marcellus assets were part of the sale–so at least some of the acreage will allow for Marcellus drilling, should DGO want to pursue it. Although Titan is keeping its Utica Shale acreage, the company says it use the money from this sale to concentrate efforts on oil drilling in the Texas Eagle Ford Shale play. Titan is moving its headquarters from Pittsburgh to Houston, TX. In addition to the news about Titan selling its conventional assets and moving, the twin story (perhaps even more interesting) is that the buyer, DGO (nominally headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, although actually a UK company), has been on a buying spree–snapping up 75,250 conventional acres (1,300 wells) in PA & WV earlier this year. All told, DGO now owns 1.6 million acres of leases and 10,000+ conventional oil and gas wells in Appalachia…
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National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State, is making noises (threats) that Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be very concerned about. NFG covers the full span of the oil and gas business–from upstream (with its wholly-owned drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources), to the midstream (with wholly-owned subsidiary Empire Pipeline) to downstream (NFG’s natural gas utility service to 740,000 customers in NY and PA). It’s a big company that generates a lot of jobs and revenue for New York State. Yet NY is metaphorically crapping all over NFG–and the company is signaling its willingness to retaliate by leaving. No, not move the company HQ, or sell off its gigantic utility business. Nothing of that sort (yet, anyway). But NFG CEO Ronald Tanski said on an earnings call last Friday that NFG is “getting lousy regulatory treatment in New York State” and that “Given this type of regulatory treatment in the state, we have to take a serious look at our ability to achieve any reasonable growth in New York.” Translation: We’ll stop launching new projects that invest billions in the Empire State, and instead invest that money and the jobs it creates in PA and other states. The “lousy treatment” NFG is getting is related to NY’s corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation decision to deny it permits to build the Northern Access Pipeline (see 
Something has to be done about New York’s out-of-control governor (Andy Cuomo) and his opposition to natural gas pipelines. MDN’s beloved home state uses more and more natural gas each year–yet Cuomo refuses to allow new pipelines to be built allowing more gas supplies into the state. He is strangling the state economically–particularly Upstate. Two important pipeline projects have been rejected by Cuomo’s corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–Williams’ Constitution and NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline. Both companies have sued in federal court to force the state to back down (a years-long process). In the meantime, business, economic and o&g industry leaders have decided they need to do something. So a number of major organizations and businesses, including chambers of commerce, large midstream companies, labor unions and more have joined together to form a new coalition called 
The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY), a group representing over 70,000 landowners with a collective 1 million acres of land that could be leased for oil and gas drilling, only if, has just sent off a letter to President Trump asking for his help. The JLCNY, via the letter, alerts Trump to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s shenanigans in blocking natural gas pipelines. The letter also asks Trump to support legislation we’ve previously highlighted by Congressman Tom Reed to protect landowners in New York (and other states) from government actions that block oil and gas development (see 
Earlier this month MDN brought you the sad (and angering) news that once again Gov. Andrew Cuomo has caved to political pressure from environmental Nazis and instructed the now-corrupted Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny stream crossing permits for National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) Northern Access Pipeline project (see 
New York Gov. Cuomo has now blocked the Constitution Pipeline from getting built (see 
We’ve now written two posts addressing the jaw-dropping audacity of the corrupt New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation in their refusal to grant water crossing permits to a second major pipeline project (see 
On Feb. 3, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a long-delayed project–National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) Northern Access 2016 pipeline project (see 
The Millennium Pipeline stretches ~244 miles from Independence in Steuben County, NY to Buena Vista in Rockland County, NY. The Millennium, which is supplied by local production and storage fields and interconnecting upstream pipelines, serves customers along its route in New York’s Southern Tier region and helps meet the energy needs of northeast markets. In August 2016, the Millennium filed an application for what it calls its Eastern System Upgrade (see 
In May 2016, Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company (Transco) pre-filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a project called the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (see 
Last week MDN brought you the news that a federal judge had dismissed a case brought by the Constitution Pipeline against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) over the issue of denying water crossing permits for the project (see 
In June 2014, MDN told you about the Dominion New Market Project–a project that will build two new compressor plants and upgrade one other compressor station in upstate New York–to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania (and beyond) into the northeast (see 
A press release announcing fourth quarter and full year 2016 results for Empire Energy Group caught our eye. The release talks about assets owned by Empire in the Marcellus/Utica region–specifically in Pennsylvania and New York. When we got digging, we found some interesting information. First off, Empire has operations in both Australia and (primarily) here in the U.S. One interesting observation is that Empire sold some of its considerable leases in Australia to Aubrey McClendon back in 2015 (see 
A disappointing setback for the much-needed Constitution Pipeline–a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline due to run from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY carrying Marcellus gas. As you may recall, in April 2016, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see