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Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Finishes Year @ 622, M-U @ 40
In what has become a repeating pattern, indicating we may have hit bottom, last week, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count added two rigs, going from 620 two weeks ago to 622 last week. The pattern is to lose a few and then gain a few every couple of weeks. After Pennsylvania lost a rig two weeks ago (see Baker Hughes U.S. Rig Count Loses 3 @ 620, M-U Drops 1 @ 40), the rig count for the three combined Marcellus/Utica states remained the same last week at 40 active rigs. Disappointingly (for the M-U), the Haynesville, our main competitor (for drillers and money), remained at 44 active rigs last week.
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The slight rise in the national rig count, with the count going up by one or two rigs a week over the past five weeks (what we call a “dead cat bounce”), is over. The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count lost ground again last week. The count went from 626 active rigs two weeks ago down to 623 last week. The Marcellus/Utica stayed even at 41 active rigs last week.
New shale permits issued for Dec 4 – 10 in the Marcellus/Utica were up by 2 over the previous week. There were 27 new permits issued last week versus 25 issued two weeks ago. However, there was a major surprise! Last week’s permit tally included 8 new permits in Pennsylvania, 9 new permits in Ohio, and 10 new permits in West Virginia. The pattern is typically the opposite, with PA receiving the most permits and WV the least. The company receiving the most permits last week was EQT Corporation, with all 10 of WV’s permits all on the same well pad in Marion County.
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) “temporarily” suspended the operations of four fracking waste injection wells in Athens County in September (see 
Yesterday, representatives from Tenaska gave a presentation to the Hancock County (WV) Commission detailing the company’s plans to drill carbon dioxide (CO2) injection wells in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The company anticipates drilling seven CO2 injection wells/sites in WV, 12 wells/sites in OH, and three wells/sites in PA. Tenaska has established an office in Weirton, WV, as it works toward establishing its carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) process in the region. It hopes to have wells operations by 2027.
Earlier this week MDN told you that two of Gulfport Energy’s major investors were conducting a sale of what amounts to 3.5% of the company’s stock (see 
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, based in Houston, TX, is the national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector. The Council reports jobs in the O&G sector increased in November, adding 1,286 jobs. The O&G industry employs 652,398 jobs across the country, just 54,130 jobs away from returning to pre-pandemic levels. And how much do those jobs pay? The average hourly earnings for frontline oil-and-gas workers rose 1.3% in October from the previous month to $44.11, according to a Labor Department report released last week.
Hart Energy keeps the hits rolling, publishing interviews and articles from the recent DUG Appalachia event held in Pittsburgh in November. The latest is a transcript of an interview between Hart Energy’s editorial director and Encino Energy’s CTO. According to the CTO, the company uses “machine learning” to perfect its oil drilling in the northern Ohio Utica, and it’s paying off. Encino is looking to expand in the Ohio Utica — looking to lease more and drill more.
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) released production numbers for the third quarter of 2023 late last week, and nobody noticed…except MDN (thanks to a tip from a good friend). ODNR no longer issues a press release to summarize the results as they once did. We’ve got the full spreadsheet with oil and gas production details for all 3,281 active shale wells in the Buckeye State. We’ve sliced and diced the numbers and have our usual Top 25 lists for natural gas and oil wells. We’ve included a couple of charts summarizing the data, showing the total production by driller (gas and oil) and the total production for the quarter by county. You’re gonna love it!
Anti-fossil fuel fanatics in Ohio (and beyond) still can’t accept that they lost a battle to block drilling under (not on) Ohio state-owned land, including some Ohio state parks. Several weeks ago, the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) met in a public forum and voted to allow shale drilling under three state-owned tracts of land: (1) all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County, (2) more than 300 acres of Valley Run Wildlife Area in Carroll County, and (3) 66 acres of the Zepernick Wildlife Area in Columbiana County (see