11 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Sep 1 – 7
For the week of September 1 – 7, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica decreased from the previous week. There were 11 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, down from 19 issued two weeks ago (and way down from 30 issued three weeks ago). Pennsylvania issued just three new permits, with one each going to Expand Energy, EQT Corporation, and Range Resources in Bradford, Greene, and Washington counties, respectively. Read More “11 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Sep 1 – 7”

Gulfport Energy is the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled). The company emerged from bankruptcy four years ago with a new board and new management in May 2021 (see
One of the significant stories of 2024 in the Ohio Utica was about Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry, Ohio, that handles fracking waste by transporting it for disposal. AMS ran into trouble when it ran out of money. The Martins Ferry facility in Belmont County, where waste is temporarily stored, had exceeded its permitted maximum of 600 tons of stored waste, resulting in a violation of its permit. The Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against the company in March 2024 to force compliance and to force the cleanup of the facility. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) stepped in to do the cleanup work. As of today, cleaning and testing are done.
Earlier this year, an undisclosed shale driller asked the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to consider opening up an additional 4,360 acres of state-owned Egypt Valley Wildlife Area in Belmont County for shale drilling under the land (see
Yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling dismissing a case that leaves in place a ruling from the Seventh District Court of Appeals. The case, Darrell Crozier et al. v. Pipe Creek Conservancy LLC et al., involves a decision on who owns the oil and gas rights underlying a property in rural Belmont County. The case revolves around the Ohio Marketable Title Act (MTA), something we’ve written about multiple times (