Eclipse Resources | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Monroe County | Montage Resources | Ohio
Another 655 Acres in Ohio Wayne Natl Forest Auctioned for $1.3M
The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently announced the winners of Utica Shale mineral rights for 14 parcels of land, adding up to ~655 acres, located in Wayne National Forest (WNF). The 14 properties netted the government $1.326 million and all 14 were purchased by two (possibly more) Utica Shale drillers. Average price per acre paid across the entire lot: $2,024. Who did the leasing? You have to be a subscriber to find out. 🙂
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EdgeMarc Energy, headquartered in Canonsburg, PA (with 50,000 acres of Marcellus/Utica leases), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, looking to sell all of the company’s assets (see 
Could we *finally* see some movement on an NGL (natural gas liquids) storage facility in the Marcellus/Utica? Indeed it seems possible–even likely. Mountaineer NGL Storage is planning to build an NGL storage operation in Monroe County, OH, located just across the river (and border) from West Virginia.
This is a momentous occasion, nearly 13 years in the making. The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits on June 28 to drill two Utica Shale wells in Monroe County. Both wells begin on privately owned land, but then travel under sections of Wayne National Forest (WNF). As near as we can tell, these are the first two such wells to pass under WNF land. Below we tell you exactly where they’re located, and which company received the permits to drill them.
EdgeMarc Energy, headquartered in Canonsburg, PA (with 45,000 acres of Marcellus/Utica leases), is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, looking to sell all of the company’s assets. The reason? They can’t move their production to market because their main pipeline partner, Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline, exploded last September and ET has not been able to get the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection to allow them to restart it.
The former Blue Ridge Mountain Resources (formerly Magnum Hunter Resources) and Eclipse Resources tied the knot and merged at the end of February, promptly renaming itself Montage Resources (see 
Saudi Arabia is sniffing around the Marcellus Shale. Bloomberg reports that super secret talks are happening between Saudi Aramco (largest oil company in the world, owned by the Saudi government) and Equinor, which until recently was called Statoil. Equinor is majority-owned by the government of Norway. The Saudis are considering “buying a stake” in or possibly a joint venture with Equinor. It seems Norway is hesitant to hop into bed with the Saudis. We don’t blame them.
CNX Resources released its first quarter 2019 update yesterday, which shows the company lost $87 million, as opposed to making $527 million in profit in 1Q18. Even so, CEO Nicholas DeIuliis announced the company is upping its drilling budget from the previously announced $700 million to instead spend $885 million, largely to drill more “deep dry” Utica wells. Go big or go home!
Last week the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Eastern States Office ran another oil and gas lease auction for federal land on the eastern side of the country. Up for auction was 2,456 acres in Ohio, Michigan and Mississippi. Only half of the property listed for auction actually brought bids and sold. Of the 2,456 acres offered, a piddly 75 acres, in two parcels, was located in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF)–in Monroe County. That is, 3% of all the acreage in the BLM sale was in the Ohio Utica–and yet that 3% brought in 69% of the revenue from the sale: $15,720 total. However, the amount paid per acre for the WNF parcels seems to be small–just $209 per acre. So who picked up the 75 acres for a song?
The Pareto Principle is alive and well in the Buckeye State. You may know it as the 80/20 rule, or in this case, the 75/25 rule. The rule that states roughly 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. Last week MDN brought you the latest update from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources–their second quarter 2018 report showing all production coming from the Ohio Utica Shale (see 
American Mud Works held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week to officially open up a new regional headquarters in Monroe County, OH. The company specializes in mixing drilling mud–the stuff used to cool drill bits as they chew away at solid rock some 1-2 miles below the surface. They also recycle used drilling mud and wastewater/brine. The company’s main headquarters is in Texas. They’re locating a branch operation in Monroe to service the Utica and Marcellus industries in our region. In the short-term, the new office, due to be fully operational in about four weeks, will staff up by hiring 30-40 people. However, American Mud has bigger goals in view. They aim to add more service lines and expand their operations down the road. The number of employees will likely go much higher as they expand. Let’s welcome American Mud and another 40 jobs to Appalachia!…