AEP Announces Finding a Buyer for Austin Master Services
We have been tracking and reporting on the drama surrounding Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio, located close to the Ohio River, since the Ohio Attorney General lodged charges against the company back in March (see our AMS stories here). AMS has stored at least 10,000 tons of fracking waste (drill cuttings with low radioactivity) at the facility. The facility is rated and permitted to hold 600 tons. In March, Ohio AG Dave Yost asked the Belmont County Common Pleas Court to block AMS from receiving more waste and order it to clean up and comply with its rating. That process has been playing out. Meanwhile, the company that owns AMS, American Environmental Partners (AEP), announced yesterday it has found a buyer for AMS.
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We have been tracking and reporting on the drama surrounding Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio, located close to the Ohio River (
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) released production numbers for the first quarter 2024 yesterday. Oil production, led by Encino Energy wells, is the headline news. Oil production from Encino represented 51.3% of all Ohio Utica oil production in 1Q. Ascent Resources was the next closest oil producer, with 21.8% of Utica oil produced. As for natural gas, Ascent Resources dominated with 42.8% of all Ohio Utica natgas production. In the number two slot was Gulfport Energy with 17.6% of natgas production, followed closely by Encino with 16.0% of natgas production. Below, we have lists of the top 25 gas and oil wells by production in 1Q24, along with charts showing gas and oil production by both drillers and by county. You’ll only find this news (and this level of detail) here on MDN.
In February, the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) met to award contracts to drill under (not on) several Ohio state parks, including 5,700 acres of the 20,000-acre Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County (see 
In April, EQT Corporation and Equinor (formerly known as Statoil) announced a deal to swap land in Pennsylvania and Ohio (see 
On May 23, the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued a pooling order to Encino Energy that combines a number of properties into a single unit for drilling wells. The total of the surface land pooled is 1,081.076 acres, located in Stock Township, Harrison County, Ohio. There are 121 (!) properties or pieces of property involved, largely due to the unit passing under what appears to be a housing development. This type of thing goes on frequently — the ODNR issuing a pooling order. What’s different and unusual about this one is that the ODRN appears to have denied a request by Encino to raise the penalty against those who refused to sign a lease but ended up being forced to participate anyway.
Two weeks ago, 16 new permits were issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica region. Last week, May 20-26, the number increased by two to 18. Two drillers tied for the top prize for most new permits. Chesapeake Energy received five new permits, all of them for drilling in Sullivan County, PA. Ascent Resources also received five new permits, with four of them to drill in Jefferson County, OH, and one in Guernsey County, OH. Antero received three permits for drilling in Wetzel County, WV. EQT Corporation got two permits to drill in Washington County, PA. Range Resources, Olympus Energy, and INR each got a single new permit (see below for where).
For more than a decade, MDN has brought you stories about shale development on and under land controlled by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD), an agency formed in 1933 to help control flooding and promote water conservation in the Muskingum River watershed area of Ohio, an area that covers 8,000 square miles (
We have been tracking and reporting on the drama surrounding Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry ( Belmont County), Ohio, located close to the Ohio River (
Yeah, the bottom pretty much fell out of the rig count last week, both nationally and for the Marcellus/Utica region. We’re hitting new lows with both counts. For the M-U, Pennsylvania stayed the same with 21 active rigs, but Ohio lost one rig, and West Virginia lost two rigs last week, for a net loss of three — 37 active rigs across the region, the lowest in more than a year. The national rig count hit 600 last week, the lowest it has reached since January 2022. Ugh.
Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that owns the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see 
Yesterday was the second and final day of a hearing begun on Monday in Belmont County, OH, Common Pleas Court to determine whether or not Austin Master Services (AMS) and its parent company American Environmental Partners (AEP), along with the owner of both companies, Brad Domitrovitsch, has failed to comply with an order from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) to clean up and clear out a facility in Martins Ferry that currently holds too much frack waste. The hearing concluded with the judge’s finding that AMS, AEP, and Domitrovitsch are in “contempt” of a previous court directive to get the facility cleaned by April 17. Beginning yesterday, AMS will be fined $200 per day. If the facility is not cleaned up and in compliance by July 22, the judge has ordered Domitrovitsch (who does not live in Ohio) to report to Belmont County jail to serve a 30-day sentence.
A group of landowners in Belmont County, OH, filed a lawsuit against Rice Drilling (now EQT Corporation) in July 2021, alleging the company had shorted them on royalty payments by (a) selling the gas extracted to an affiliated (instead of unaffiliated) third party, and (b) deducting post-production costs specifically disallowed under the signed contract. Several landowners who are part of what was originally known as the Smith-Goshen Landowners Group have requested a federal court in Ohio to elevate the lawsuit to class-action status.
One month ago, the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission upheld a regulatory order from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) suspending the operation of three wastewater injection wells located in Torch (Athens County), OH, owned by K&H Partners, a subsidiary of Tallgrass Energy (see 
American Environmental Partners (AEP) and its owner, Brad Domitrovitsch, had their first day in court yesterday in Belmont County, OH, to address a motion by Ohio’s Attorney General, David Yost, to hold the company and Domitrovitsch in contempt for not complying with an order to clean up the Austin Master Services (AMS) facility owned by AEP. Although the hearing was scheduled to begin at 10 am, it didn’t actually start until 11:10 am. The judge gave the attorneys for the parties involved time to talk in an effort to arrive at a resolution. Which obviously didn’t happen as the hearing went forward. There was just one witness for the day yesterday.