American Energy Partners Inc. | Belmont County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Wastewater
Deal to Take Over Austin Master Services Appears to Have Failed
In early June, the owner of Austin Master Services (AMS), American Environmental Partners (AEP), sent a press announcement to MDN to announce he had found a buyer for AMS (see AEP Announces Finding a Buyer for Austin Master Services). AMS is a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio. The Ohio Attorney General lodged charges against AMS in March, accusing the company of storing 16+ times more drill cuttings at the facility than it’s rated for. According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the deal to take over AMS and clean it up has fallen through.
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According to Public News Service (PNS), a Big Green propaganda outfit funded (in part) by the Fresh Water Accountability Project, the CEO of Austin Master Services (AMS), a frack waste storage facility in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, was supposed to attend a Belmont County court hearing by phone. He faces contempt-of-court charges for failing to clean up 10,000 tons of waste. However, it wasn’t the hearing that caught our attention; it was a comment made by the Mayor of Martins Ferry.
Operators and investors are more concerned than ever about the remaining inventory of drillable locations. Who has it? Where is it? Will it be economic? The North American inventory rankings by shale play are always of interest. Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, recently issued a report that ranks the plays by the number of economic-to-drill locations each play has left. Unfortunately, Marcellus Shale play is on the list of “losers” in this latest report. Why? A huge jump in Bidenflation — rig day rates were up 25% year-over-year in September in the Marcellus, compared to about 15% across the other plays. Also a factor is dropping productivity in the Marcellus (“productivity degradation”), particularly in northeast PA.
In January 2023, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
We noticed that permit data has already been updated for last week, so we’re bringing you our weekly permit report a day early. For the week of July 1 – 7, a total of 18 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica. There were six new permits issued in Pennsylvania, with four of them going to Range Resources for a pad in Washington County. There were four new permits in Ohio, all of them going to Encino Energy for a pad in Guernsey County. West Virginia was the surprise with eight new permits, six of which were issued to Antero Resources in Tyler County.
An anti-drilling Democrat member of the Ohio House of Representatives (representing a Cleveland suburb) would love nothing more than to ban all shale drilling in his state. He has just introduced a bill requiring drillers to disclose any and all chemicals they use for any purpose when drilling a new shale well under state-owned land. State Rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, representing the 14th Ohio House District, claims House Bill (HB) 562 will “improve public safety and transparency.” Will it? Is that its real purpose?
In April, the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission upheld a regulatory order from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) suspending operations of three wastewater injection wells located in Torch (Athens County), OH, owned by K&H Partners, a subsidiary of Tallgrass Energy (see 
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) have been all the rage over the past year or so. In 2024 alone, Chesapeake Energy announced a $7.4 billion deal to buy Southwestern Energy (see 
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count had been in a pattern of free-falling for over a month. Last week, the national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count finally reversed course and added four rigs — now at 585. The Marcellus/Utica stayed the same last week, for the fifth week in a row, with a combined 36 active rigs. Pennsylvania continued to operate 21 rigs. Ohio remained steady with ten active rigs. And West Virginia kept five active rigs.
We’re picking up the thread of a story we last reported on in 2021. In July 2019, MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells near St. Clairsville (see 
Precise Boring of Ohio, founded 25 years ago, specializes in Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) — drilling sideways underground and installing pipelines through the holes it drills. Specifically, Precise (headquartered in Fairfield County, OH) works on installing shale and other types of pipelines, including water and sewer pipes. Precise is actively working for the Marcellus/Utica industry in Ohio. This morning, CST Utilities, an Ohio-based infrastructure service company providing a range of excavation, underground, and maintenance services to public utilities (electric, natural gas, water), telecom providers, and other businesses, announced it has bought Precise and will operate it as a standalone subsidiary.