Antero Resources & Gulfport Energy’s Utica Shale High Notes
In recent weeks as part of a flurry of year end and fourth quarter financial and operational reports, MDN brought you the latest news from Marcellus and Utica Shale powerhouse driller Antero Resources (see Antero Resources Keeps up the Pace in the Marcellus/Utica). We also told you the latest from Gulfport Energy, including our “takeaways” (see Gulfport Production & Profits Jump in 2013 Thanks to Utica Shale).
The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register reporter Casey Junkins has done a great job of summarizing the highlights from both companies–hitting the “high notes” as it were, particularly with respect to the Utica Shale–in the following update:
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Does Aubrey McClendon have a wandering eye? Is he a shale play philanderer? It seems to us that since Aubrey was shown to the door of his own company (Chesapeake Energy) last year by corporate raider Carl Ichan, the only word to come out of Aubrey’s mouth has been “Utica.” It’s been Utica this and Utica that. He’s now raised more than $2.9 billion (!) for Utica Shale land acquisition and drilling (see 
In August of 2012 staffers at the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) made a boo-boo. They put into writing (in the form of a 13-page memo, embedded below) a draft plan to promote Utica Shale drilling under (not on) Sunfish Creek State Forest (in Monroe County), under (not on) Barkcamp State Park (in Belmont County), and under (not on) Wolf Run State Park (Noble County). The memo begins by saying there will be a communications problem to solve: “An initiative to proactively open state park and forest land to horizontal drilling/hydraulic fracturing will be met with zealous resistance by environmental activist opponents, who are skilled propagandists. Neutral parties in particular — such as ordinary citizens concerned about their families’ health — will be vulnerable to messaging by opponents that the initiative represents dangerous and radical state policy by Gov. Kasich.” (emphasis original) The memo states later on that, “Anti-fracking activists will attempt to legally and physically disrupt or halt the drilling projects, including staging dangerous protests on state lands. (This will require sustained legal countermeasures and crisis readiness by ODNR.)”