Cleveland Plain Dealer Attacks OH Law re Drilling Under State Land
The Democrats who control and write for the Cleveland Plain Dealer are, once again, attacking a new law that allows for shale drilling under (but not on top of) Ohio state-owned land. The new measure was passed and signed into law late last year (see OH Gov. Signs Bill Expanding Drilling in State Parks, NatGas “Green”). The Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission, a commission established years ago to lease state-owned land for shale drilling, had failed to act. So the legislature lit a fire under the commission by temporarily taking away its authority until it acts. In a big hairy hurry, the commission adopted new policies to begin leasing state-owned land for shale drilling (see Ohio O&G Commission Moves Rapidly to Lease State Land for Drilling). That has the editors and writers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer look like they’re sucking on sour grapes.
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While we don’t track rig counts each week, given the volatile up-and-down nature of rig counts, the count from last week warrants comment. Oil rigs fell by one last week to 589, while gas rigs rose by nine to 162. Total rig count is up 13.7% over the same time last year–a good indicator that more drilling is happening. In our region, the Marcellus play gained five rigs from the previous week, while the Utica lost four rigs from the previous week.
New shale permits issued for Mar. 6-12 in the Marcellus/Utica increased by one from the prior week. There were 30 new permits issued in total last week, including 21 new permits for Pennsylvania, 5 new permits for Ohio, and 4 new permits issued in West Virginia. Last week the top receiver of new permits was EQT with 7 new permits–all of them (interestingly) issued in Lycoming County, PA. The second highest number of permits went to Repsol, with 6 permits in Bradford County, PA. Chesapeake Energy came in third with 5 permits for Bradford County, PA.
Once again, the Biden administration is attacking the fossil fuel industry. This time it is via one of its favorite blunt force instruments: the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yesterday the EPA released what it calls its final “Good Neighbor Plan” that forces gas- (and coal-) fired power plants to further reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. It’s either reduce NOx by installing really expensive new equipment, shut the plant down, or option #3…pay an indulgence (tax) to keep sinning (polluting) by purchasing an “offset.” Liberals are so predictable.
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issues an update on Utica (and Marcellus) oil and natural gas production each quarter. ODNR no longer issues a press release to summarize the results as they once did, which means the quarterly updates fell off our radar. Now and again something jogs our memory to revisit and share with you the production reports from the ODNR, to bring you the top 25 wells by production for both natural gas and oil production. Today we look back at all of 2022. ODNR publishes a detailed spreadsheet of all active wells showing oil and gas production by well. We make a copy of that spreadsheet, enhance it to make it more usable, and link to it. Below are the results.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP), which has long been a defender and educator working to get the truth out about oil and gas in the Buckeye State, is dropping oil and gas from its name. OOGEEP is rebranding itself as the Ohio Natural Energy Institute. We have to wonder, why are they dropping oil and gas from the name? What does natural energy actually mean?
Here’s the sad end of a sad chapter in Ohio’s history–a conclusion (of sorts) to the largest bribery scandal in the state’s history. We’re referring to Ohio House Bill (HB) 6, a law granting billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy bribed state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million to a small group of insiders, including former Speaker of the House, Larry Householder (see 
Last week MDN told you about a presentation by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) to the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission, a commission established years ago to lease state-owned land for shale drilling (see 
In 2020, EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), sold *all* of its Marcellus assets, which were located in Bradford County, PA, to Tilden Resources for $130 million (see 
Yesterday morning Harrison County, OH, commissioners got a face-to-face update from Encino Energy’s director of external affairs, Jackie Stewart. You may recall that Encino bought out and took over all of Chesapeake Energy’s existing Ohio assets–both shale and non-shale–in November 2018 for $2 billion (see 
The Barack Hussein Obama administration went crazy with over-regulation in many areas. One of them was to redefine “waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) as everything down to, no exaggeration, mud puddles. When Donald Trump took office, he set about to correct some of the insane abuses of the Obama era, including WOTUS. He finally got it fixed. However, the Bidenistas took up the cause once again. Radicals at the EPA announced a new rule in January aimed at re-regulating all waters, putting power over just about everything (including oil and gas drilling) into the federal government’s hands via WOTUS (see 
Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in “electric” fracking–using natural gas from the well pad (instead of diesel fuel) to power turbines to create electricity that drives fracking pumps. In September 2020, three former Evolution employees who worked at remote sites in the Marcellus/Utica filed a lawsuit against the company claiming Evolution failed to pay them for their commute to and from job sites. The lawsuit was turned into a class action in February of last year (see