IOG Resources Buys 77 Nonoperated Utica Wells from Sequel Energy
Here’s a company we’ve not written about since 2016: IOG Capital. Back in 2015 we first told you that IOG Capital had cut a deal with Seneca Resources to fund Seneca’s Marcellus drilling program in Elk, McKean and Cameron counties in northcentral Pennsylvania (see Seneca Res. Cuts Deal with IOG Capital to Fund Up to 80 PA Wells). Seneca announced in 2016 that their deal with IOG had been revised and extended from funding 75 wells to funding 82 wells (see Seneca Resources & IOG Extend JV to Drill More Wells in PA). IOG, via its subsidiary IOG Resources, reports that earlier this month it purchased nonoperating interests in 77 producing Utica wells from Sequel Energy for an undisclosed amount.
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Hilcorp is a major driller founded in 1989 by Jeff Hildebrand. It is one of the largest privately-held (stock not publicly traded) oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in the U.S. Headquartered in Houston, TX, Hilcorp has over 1,825 employees in multiple operating areas including the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, and (yes) in the Marcellus/Utica. While they don’t have a huge presence here in the northeast, Hilcorp does actively drill shale wells in Lawrence County, PA and Columbiana County, OH. The Youngstown Business Journal reports Hilcorp is advancing its program in the northern portion of the Ohio Utica.
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received 9 new permits, with 5 of those permits going to Cabot Oil & Gas and their drilling program in Susquehanna County. Ohio received 4 new permits, all for the same company (Encino Energy) in the same county (Harrison) on the same well pad. And West Virginia received 3 new permits, all for the same company (Northeast Natural Energy) in the same county (Monongalia) on the same well pad.
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil, and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in several unconventional shale plays, including the Marcellus and Utica. Last week Summit issued its fourth-quarter (and full-year) 2020 update. One thing was obvious: The company’s Utica Shale segment was the star performer in 4Q and for the entire year.
There is finally movement in Ohio to repeal an odious law passed by Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature called House Bill 6, which funnels over $1 billion from Ohio ratepayers to FirstEnergy Corporation in order to keep the company’s unprofitable nuclear power plants running (while disadvantaging other power sources, like gas-fired plants). FirstEnergy is accused of bribing legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $60 million in bribes (see 
The pandemic did its best to shut the world down, and maybe it succeeded in shutting down other countries–but not here in the US of A. Against an onslaught of shutdowns (particularly in “blue” states), people staying home, businesses closing, anarchy and chaos in large Democrat cities…and against an onslaught against fossil fuels by environmental Nazis seeking to destroy the economies of the world via bans of oil and natural gas and coal…U.S. natural gas production decreased by just 1 percent last year. Can you believe it? That’s a victory in our book!
In September 2016, local utility company Duke Energy filed a plan to build a critically-needed natural gas pipeline near Cincinnati, OH to replace an old pipeline built in the 1950s. Duke needs to replace the pipe or some of the half-million Duke customers in the region won’t get natural gas anymore. Following multiple revisions to the plan to satisfy anti-pipeline wackos (who will never be satisfied), in November 2019 the Ohio Power Siting Board gave Duke final approval to build the Central Corridor Gas Pipeline Project along an alternative route (see 
Last fall Mountaineer NGL Storage, a $500 million project in Monroe County, OH to build underground storage for ethane and other NGLs, asked Ohio regulators to cancel a key permit for the project (see 
Last November we brought you the news that PTT Global Chemical was changing the timeline (again) for a final investment decision (FID) to build a $10 billion ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH, this time to the middle of 2021 (see 
Aubrey McClendon, the co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and the guy most responsible for discovering and commercializing the Ohio Utica Shale, once famously said the Utica “is the best thing to hit the state of Ohio economically since maybe the plow.” And indeed it has been. The Utica is often overshadowed by its larger and more productive cousin the Marcellus Shale. According to Mike Chadsey from the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, the Utica has never really gotten the level of attention and respect it deserves.