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20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 29 – Feb 4
There were 20 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, versus 27 permits issued during the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 12 new permits last week. Ohio issued 6 new permits. West Virginia issued 2 new permits last week. We had a tie for the company receiving the most permits. Seneca Resources received 4 permits to drill in Tioga County, PA, and Ascent Resources received 4 permits to drill in Harrison County, OH.
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Anti-fossil fuel zealots (climate catastrophists) have set their sights on blocking drilling and fracking under (not on top of) Ohio’s state-owned land, including several state parks. Their favorite tactic is to lie and smear the companies that seek to do such drilling. One tiny problem (for the zealots): they don’t know which companies are bidding to do the drilling. And that drives them even more crazy. So the zealots, with the help of mainstream media, are trying to paint the process as “secretive” — like there’s something nefarious that the fracking industry wants to hide. In reality, the identity of the winning bid is kept “secret” until the deal is officially announced because IT’S STATE LAW.
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica and elsewhere. We have chronicled a number of Peregrine’s M-U purchases since 2019 (
Last November, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG), a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced a deal to enter the Utica Shale (see 
Last Thursday, members of the Pennsylvania Senate, including PA State Sen. Gene Yaw, and members of the Ohio General Assembly met in Columbus for a hearing on energy reliability, sustainability, and affordability. The hearing consisted of two panels, one focused on state and national energy impacts and another on consumer and generational impacts. PJM, the organization that manages the mid-Atlantic power grid consisting of 13 states and the District of Columbia, testified. Indeed, the main thrust of the meeting seemed to be how to keep the growing PJM grid from crashing into blackouts because of an overreliance on unreliable renewables like solar and wind.
Evolution Well Services announced a three-year extension of their current electric fracturing partnership with Encino Energy after achieving operational efficiencies and milestones in 2023. Evolution uses “e-fracking” technology. Traditional fracking uses diesel-fueled engines to produce electricity to power pressure pumps for hydraulic fracturing operations. E-fracking uses natural gas from the well pad (or CNG or LNG) to power turbines to create electricity. E-fracking uses a different type of “engine” and different fuel. E-fracking fleets are roughly half the size of traditional diesel fleets — and a whole lot quieter.
The Baker Hughes rig count gained another rig last week. The count went from 620 active rigs two weeks ago to 621 last week — up a single rig. It went up a single rig the week prior, too. And that’s about where we are. We have floated between 620 and 625 for all of December and January — dipping to 619 for one week during that period. It appears we’ve hit the bottom and are stable. The Marcellus/Utica remained constant last week with 42 active rigs, after PA added two rigs the week before.
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. In November, 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 
Here’s a story we haven’t written about in over three years. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County that supposedly caused a low-level earthquake (that nobody could feel) in 2014. Actually, there are two injection wells located at the site, both operated by AWMS. They were both “temporarily” shut down by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources following the quake nobody could feel (see 
Yesterday we brought you the latest update on EOG Resources’ oil drilling program in the Utica Shale (see 
Perhaps our headline is slightly misleading. EOG is not the modern equivalent of Jed Clampett walking along and seeing crude bubbling up out of the ground (as in the fictional 
Behind the Dominion Energy building in Hudson, Ohio, sits what’s being dubbed Hydrogen Heights. It’s a mini-village. The sign at the entrance says, “Welcome to Hydrogen Heights.” Dominion is testing the blending of hydrogen and methane on gas appliances there. We have nothing against using hydrogen as an energy source, other than it will never be able to power your home (see