Hess Quietly Shops the Rest of Their Ohio Utica Acreage
In January 2014 Hess Corporation sold 74,000 of its 95,000 100%-owned Utica Shale acreage leases to Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy Partners for $924 million (see Hess Sells 74,000 OH Utica Shale Dry Gas Acres to Mystery Buyer). After the sale, Hess still owned 21,000 acres of leases plus a 50% share of a joint venture with CONSOL Energy in another 65,000 acres. In January of this year, Hess (like other drillers) cut way back on their budget for Utica drilling (see Hess Cuts Utica Drilling Budget 42% for 2015). It appeared that Hess was still in love with the Utica as recently as August when Hess’ top managers said some flattering things about their Utica acreage (see Hess Says Harrison County, OH “Truly the Sweet Spot” of the Utica). Perhaps that was a buildup to selling their remaining position–because that’s exactly what they’re now doing. According to unnamed sources who have seen an offering document being circulated, Hess is shopping all of their remaining Utica acreage, including the jv with CONSOL…
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There are some 408 parks that are part of the National Park System in the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) is the government agency charged with managing those parks. The NPS has just put everyone on notice that new regulations for oil and gas drilling on and under those parks is coming. In some cases mineral rights are not owned by the government and drilling does happen on or under the parks. Oil and gas drilling currently happens in 12 of the 408 parks, including drilling operations in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Akron and Cleveland in Northeast Ohio. Just over half of the drilling operations happening in those 12 National Parks is exempt from NPS regulations. In an annoucement (below), the NPS said (1) we’re about to make drilling regs more strict, and (2) the new regs will apply to all drilling in all National Parks, including the places where it’s currently exempt from NPS rules–even if the mineral rights are not owned by the NPS. It is another power grab by the federal government. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) tried this tactic with non-park federal lands–a move that landed it in court (see 
Floridian Jeb Bush is running for President as a Republican–necessary to state the obvious because many are likely not aware of Jeb’s candidacy since his poll numbers are in the single digits. Jeb was a guest at Rice Energy near Pittsburgh in September to unveil his energy policy plan (see 
The Obama war on coal continues. So far Obama has put around a half million people working for coal companies in the unemployment line. His solution? If you live and/or have worked in coal mines in Ohio and are now out of work, Obama is giving the state a $2 million Band-Aid grant (of taxpayer’s money) for “retraining” so the out-of-work coal miners can go to work in the Marcellus/Utica shale gas fields. One small problem: the gas companies are laying people off too. In record numbers. Government at its finest: retrain someone out of work in one industry for jobs that don’t exist in another industry. Here’s the details on the retraining program coming to the Buckeye State for out-of-work coal miners…
With President Obama’s war on coal in full swing, so-called renewable energy sources like wind and solar can’t possibly pick up the slack from coal-powered electric generating plants shutting down. Coal-fired electric plants are shutting down at an alarming rate–we’ve lost 11 million megawatts of coal-fired electric capacity in the past year alone. That situation spells opportunity for natural gas. One reason that natgas is making inroads in the electric generating space is because it’s a whole lot cheaper today than it was just a few short years ago to use clean-burning natural gas to power electric plants. In 2008 the price of natural gas sold for an average of $13 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). Today? The price of gas has been bumping along at around $2.75/Mcf. In places like southwest Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio Marcellus and Utica gas sells for around $1.50-$1.75/Mcf. So it’s no wonder electric plants powered by natural gas are springing up all over the place. Below is a quick look at six such plants in eastern Ohio and West Virginia…
In 2012, Barnesville (Belmont County), OH signed a contract with Gulfport Energy to sell Gulfport water from the Slope Creek Reservoir for 1 penny per gallon. Earlier this year Gulfport wanted to begin drilling in the area, following a joint venture agreement with Antero Resources. But Barnesville said the water level in the reservoir is too low and wouldn’t sell any to Gulfport, so Gulfport sued and in March the whole matter ended up in federal court (see 
Are you a farmer in Ohio with concerns, or perhaps a general interest, in whether or not pipelines running across your property will negatively affect crop productivity? If you are, Ohio State University wants to talk to you. OSU is looking for 20 to 30 farmers with pipelines in their fields over a period of three to five years to participate in a new research study. Here’s the details of the study and how to participate…
An expert speaking at the Utica Summit III yesterday in Stark, OH said he believes the Marcellus/Utica region will see three, possibly four, ethane crackers built. Tom Gellrich of consulting firm TopLine Analytics, a company that “closely follows ethane markets,” said he thinks the first ethane cracker to get built will be the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA…
Quick: According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which three states are responsible for 85% of the increase in natural gas production since 2012? If you answered Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, you would be correct. The Marcellus/Utica Shale has been the number one economic stimulus and jobs creator in the northeast for the past three years. At times, PA, OH and WV have competed for the same investments, like ethane cracker plants. (All three states have a serious proposals for ethane crackers.) Realizing it may be better to work together rather that compete against each other, all three states have agreed to cooperate to develop shale gas in the Appalachian region. Yesterday political representatives from all three states–Gov. Tom Wolf from PA, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin from WV and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor from OH–signed a tri-state regional cooperation agreement at the Tri-State Shale Summit held in Morgantown, WV. There are four main areas the three states have pledged to work together on…
Yesterday Rice Energy announced that the company’s subsidiary, Rice Midstream, has signed a joint venture agreement with competitor Gulfport Energy to develop a pipeline gathering and water delivery system for Gulfport’s Utica Shale drilling program in Ohio’s eastern Belmont County and Monroe County. Rice will be 75% owner and in charge of the jv. Rice and Gulfport plan to invest a combined $640 million into the jv over the next six years. Construction begins immediately and the first gas (and water) will begin to flow through the new system by middle of next year. Here’s the details…
Advanced Power Services announced yesterday they will build a second mega-electric generating plant that taps into and uses Ohio’s Utica Shale. This new plant will generate a whopping 1,100 megawatts of electricity and be located in Columbiana County, OH. Advanced just broke ground in July on a 700-megawatt plant in Carroll County (see 
Don’t look now but Utica/Marcellus condensate being produced at a MarkWest Energy processing plant in Cadiz, OH is being exported out of the country via a ship docked on the Hudson River at Perth Amboy, New Jersey–just across the river from Manhattan! The condensate is transported to NJ via railroad in specially designed rail cars. A second ship is being loaded up and will leave with Utica/Marcellus condensate from MarkWest, according to the Reuters story below. The first ship loaded with condensate left Perth Amboy one month ago heading to the Netherlands. No word yet on where the second load is heading, but sources say exporting condensate from Perth Amboy is now set up to become a routine thing, which is fantastic news for drillers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that produce condensate…
Oilfield service giant Baker Hughes released their venerable monthly rotary rig count report yesterday for September 2015. After posting gains in the overall land-based U.S. rig count number for two straight months in July and August, the September numbers dropped like a rock. September U.S. active land-based rigs averaged 848, down 35 from the average of 883 in August and down 18 from July’s average of 866. Rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica also continued to drop, showing another four rigs were idled during September across the combined PA/OH/WV. It’s getting bloody out there…
On Tuesday a Medina County, OH judge ruled that the NEXUS pipeline does have a right to enter private land to survey it for possible routes for the pipeline. The judge said Ohio laws allow private companies to survey land for eventual appropriation (including eminent domain) as long as the company can prove it is an energy or utility company. The judge said the law is quite clear on that point–plain and simple to understand. The judge’s decision didn’t sit too well with the CORNballs of CORN (Coalition to Reroute Nexus pipeline). We’ve written plenty about CORN and their effort to “reroute” the NEXUS (
One of the arguments sometimes trotted out by anti-drillers is that heavy trucks lumbering up and down rural roads will destroy them. And indeed, sometimes it does–when the road is old or not constructed to handle heavy truck traffic. Typically drillers will repair the roads to better-than-new condition–we’ve seen it in some PA counties. But here’s something you don’t often hear: Gulfport Energy is about to spend $8 million on road repairs to roads BEFORE they use them, not after. The repairs will be done over the next six weeks in Belmont County, OH, and it delights Belmont County Commission members. Somebody else footing the bill for rebuilt roads will put a smile on any county commissioner’s face…