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Apex Energy Grabs 25 of 40 Parcels in OH Wayne Nat’l Forest Sale
It’s a sellout, and we now have the full scorecard. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctioned drilling rights to 40 parcels of federal minerals under Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF), and every parcel found a buyer. The 2,776.84 acres in Monroe and Washington counties brought $11,097,693 in total receipts. Five companies won leases, and one of them, Apex Energy Operating III LLC, walked off with nearly two-thirds of the acreage. We have BLM’s full parcel-by-parcel results, embedded below. It’s the first federal lease sale in the WNF since March 2017. Read More “Apex Energy Grabs 25 of 40 Parcels in OH Wayne Nat’l Forest Sale”
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (Warren Buffett’s company), got the last piece of paper it needed yesterday for an important new pipeline project. FERC’s Office of Energy Projects issued a notice to proceed (NTP) on Sept. 10, authorizing EGTS to start building the Appalachian Reliability Project (ARP) — the 550,000 dekatherms/day expansion that will push more Marcellus and Utica gas from western Pennsylvania into Ohio. Even better, the approval comes in roughly six months ahead of the company’s own published timeline. 
EQT is planning another pipeline — and this one is big. Through a brand-new subsidiary called Appalachian Transmission Gateway LLC (ATG), the Marcellus/Utica’s largest driller has opened bidding on the “POWER Pipeline,” a 42-inch, 50-mile line that would carry a full 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas from Greene County, Pennsylvania, west to the Clarington hub in Monroe County, Ohio. The open season quietly began Aug. 26 and runs through Oct. 26. We found no press release announcing it — the notice simply went up, and the trade press caught it a week later. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 8 new drilling permits last week, August 3 – 9, down 7 from two weeks ago. Pitiful. (Cue Linda Ronstadt’s “
Here we go again. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finally issued three permits to drill on Wayne National Forest (WNF) land in Monroe County, Ohio, back in May — the first new drilling permits in Ohio’s only national forest in years. Predictably, the same coalition of green groups that has kept a lid on WNF for the better part of two decades ran straight back to federal court to try to stop them. 
Gulfport Energy dropped its second quarter 2026 numbers on Monday (Aug. 3), followed by an analyst call Tuesday morning — the first for new President and CEO Nick Dell’Osso, who took the chair May 28 after running Chesapeake/Expand Energy for five years. The profit line went the wrong direction. But strip away the accountants’ noise, and there’s a genuinely good story here for Ohio landowners, for the service companies that turn dirt, and for anyone holding the stock. 
Volatility is the watchword for new permits in the Marcellus/Utica. Three weeks ago, the combined count between Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia was a measly 8 new permits (see 
During the third quarter, Expand Energy, formed by the merger of Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy in late 2024, significantly expanded its portfolio by acquiring 82,500 new acres across the Marcellus and Haynesville shale plays for approximately $235 million. The company added approximately 7,500 acres in the Marcellus in Ohio and West Virginia for $57 million, which can accommodate over 40 well locations. The larger acquisition involved 75,000 acres in the western Haynesville for $178 million, with the potential for over 200 locations. Expand, which produced 7.33 Bcfe/d (92% natural gas), reported strong financial results for the quarter, including nearly $3 billion in revenue and a profit of $547 million. The company produced 7.2 Bcfe/d in 2Q25. Expand is the largest natural gas producer in the country.