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No Change in Either M-U Or National Baker Hughes Rig Counts
This is an interesting pattern we’ve not seen in a long time for the venerable Baker Hughes rig count. The national rig count and the count for the Marcellus/Utica remained the same for multiple weeks in a row. The national count was 589 active rigs last week (now four weeks in a row). The M-U count was 34 last week (now three weeks in a row). The national count remains rangebound between 581 and 589 since June 2024 (except for Sep. 13, when it hit 590 for a single week). The M-U remained static last week, with PA at 15 rigs, OH at 9 rigs, and WV at 10 rigs. Read More “No Change in Either M-U Or National Baker Hughes Rig Counts”
An undisclosed shale driller has asked the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to consider opening up an additional 4,360 acres of state-owned Egypt Valley Wildlife Area for shale drilling under the land. A new “nomination” for drilling was also sent to the OGLMC for 383 acres of Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area, located near Egypt Valley. Both tracts nominated for consideration are in Belmont County, OH. 
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased three weeks ago, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589 (see 
A lawsuit that slipped by us (and is still playing out) that began in Carroll County, OH, has major ramifications for landowners and drillers across the state. The case is EAP Ohio LLC v. Sunnydale Farms LLC, et al. in which 13 oil and gas leases were executed in 2008 and 2009 in Carroll County, Ohio. The 2008 Leases contained an identical royalty clause that limited post-production deductions to three categories: transportation, compression, and/or dehydration to deliver the gas for sale. After drilling wells on those properties, EAP (Encino Energy) deducted several other items from royalties, including costs incurred for processing, treating, fuel, gathering, and trucking. The lawsuit tussles with the issue of how terms are defined and whether these “extra” categories are allowed under the lease’s language. 
For the week of Dec 9 – 15, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica remained healthy. There were 22 new permits issued last week, down just a bit from the 28 issued the week before. The Keystone State (PA) issued 17 new permits, with the bulk of them, 11, going to a single driller, PennEnergy Resources, for a single pad in Beaver County. Seneca Resources scored three new permits in Tioga County. One permit each was issued to Pennsylvania General Energy (Lycoming County), Coterra Energy (Susquehanna County), and CNX Resources (Westmoreland County). 
In November, MDN told you that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
One week ago, MDN told you that Ohio House Bill (HB) 308 had passed votes by both the full House and Senate and was heading to the desk of RINO Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature (see 
JobsOhio
Oil wildcatting is the process of drilling exploratory wells in areas with little to no history of oil and gas production. Wildcatting is a high-risk activity that involves drilling in unproven or fully depleted areas. Wildcat wells are often drilled far from other wells and without the use of well logs or other geological data. Wildcatting can be profitable—or spectacularly unprofitable. A recent Hart Energy article reports that “wildcatting is back.” The very first part of the article focuses on wildcatting that is happening in the Ohio Utica Shale. 
MDN reported that in early October that Infinity Natural Resources (INR) filed an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hoping to raise $100 million (see 
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased two weeks ago, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589 (see 
We’ve brought you the news (a number of times) of how Encino Energy was the first driller to figure out how to coax large quantities of oil from the Ohio Utica Shale (see 
We spotted an interesting article in the Steubenville, Ohio, Herald-Star newspaper that tackles the issue of using eminent domain in the state for various kinds of pipelines. It provides an excellent history of eminent domain used not only for oil and natural gas pipelines but also how the Mariner East pipeline project led to “expanding” eminent domain to include NGLs like ethane and butane. Now, a couple of new types of pipelines are being contemplated in the Buckeye State—hydrogen pipelines and carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines. Will eminent domain laws expand again to include the new kids on the block? 
We’ve discussed shale wastewater, sometimes called brine or “produced water,” many times over the years. When drilling an oil or gas well deep in the earth, the hole releases naturally occurring water from the depths (far, far below the surface water table) for years after the well is drilled. The water coming out has a LOT of minerals, sometimes mildly radioactive, and is usually called either brine (meaning salty) or produced water. Traditionally, there are two ways to handle all of that water coming out of the ground: (1) recycle it and reuse it for more oil and gas drilling, or (2) pump it back down into the ground from whence it came via an injection well. Ohio University (in Athens, OH) has just won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how produced water can be cleaned up and used outside the oil and gas sector.