DT Midstream | Energy Services | Greene County (PA) | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Marion County | Monongalia County | Noble County | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Susquehanna County | Tioga County (PA) | West Virginia
DT Midstream 4Q – M-U Pipeline Operations Expand, Looking for M&A
DT Midstream (DTM), headquartered in Detroit, owns major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region and other regions like the Haynesville. DTM issued its fourth quarter 2023 update last Friday. The Marcellus/Utica region (which they call Northeast in the report) received several prominent mentions during a conference call with analysts. Also of note were comments by DT CEO David Slater, who said he’s positioning the company to take advantage of “bolt-on” opportunities in the regions where they operate. Meaning he’s on the lookout for mergers and acquisitions.
Read More “DT Midstream 4Q – M-U Pipeline Operations Expand, Looking for M&A”
According to an article in Ohio Country Journal, interest and activity in eastern Ohio’s oil and gas leasing has been growing in some new areas. Those areas include, says Clif Little, Ohio State University Extension educator in Guernsey County, portions of Guernsey and Noble counties where there hadn’t been interest in the past. Little specializes in, among other things, oil and gas leases. He’s the author of “Important aspects of an oil and gas lease” (copy below), chock full of good tips for landowners either leasing for the first time or looking to re-lease.
We’re trying not to sound too PO’d (personally offended) here, but once again, in what seems to be an every month or two occurrence, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) online oil and gas permitting database is throwing an error. So, we are left with no permit numbers for PA for the week of July 10-16. Neither the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) reporting system nor the West Virginia DEP reporting system have these problems. It is only the PA DEP that routinely goes “off the air.” Why is that? [Rant over] Even without PA’s numbers, OH and WV combined issued 17 permits last week, versus the pathetic 11 total from the prior week that included PA.
Two weeks ago, shale drillers could, for the first time, begin to apply for permits to drill under (not on top of) Ohio state lands and state parks under newly formulated rules established by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission (see 
Last week Pennsylvania issued just 8 new permits for Marcellus/Utica drilling, down a bit from previous weeks. Ohio issued 10 new permits. We don’t often see Ohio issue more permits in a week than Pennsylvania. Finally, West Virginia issued just 1 permit for new shale drilling last week.
Ohio’s Seventh District Court recently delivered a ruling that affects landowners/rights owners as well as drillers. In Tomechko v. Garrett (full copy below), the justices ruled that “adverse possession” of shallow gas rights expands to include deep gas rights (i.e. shale rights) in cases where shallow production “modified the subterranean structure.” According to the legal experts at Frost Brown Todd, “the Seventh District’s ruling strains credulity” and has the potential to “have unintended consequences and will almost certainly result in greater uncertainty and litigation.”
American Electric Power (AEP) recently sealed a deal to sell more than 31,000 acres of land in eastern Ohio to the state of Ohio for $47 million. The state will use it for a state park. However, subsurface rights are not part of the deal. AEP will wisely hold on those rights. At some point AEP may want to drill and frack the land, and that has antis in a tizzy.
Listen up landowners in Washington County, OH: For some of you, your shale lease may now be owned by someone else. Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH, has purchased all of Protégé Energy’s Utica Shale leases (and other assets) located in Washington and Noble counties in Ohio, and Wood County in West Virginia. The vast majority of the lease transfers are in Washington County.
A 30-inch segment of Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) interstate natural gas pipeline exploded in January, sending two people to the hospital and destroying two nearby homes when fires from the blast spread (see 
A 30-inch segment of Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) interstate natural gas pipeline exploded one week ago today, sending two people to the hospital and destroying two nearby homes when fires from the blast spread (see