Ascent Resources 1Q21: Hops on Bandwagon of Certifying Shale Gas
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its first-quarter 2021 update earlier this week. The big announcement coming from CEO Jeff Fisher is that Ascent is pursuing (like three other M-U drillers) “certification” of its shale gas.
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All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received a big 18 new permits (after receiving no new permits the previous week). More than half of those 18 permits were for wells on two pads in southwestern PA. Ohio received 7 new permits last week all in one county (Jefferson), split between Encino Energy and Ascent Resources. And West Virginia received 10 new permits with 7 of them for a single pad in Lewis County.
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 first-quarter 2021 update. The company’s Utica Shale segment continued to be the star performer.
Anti-fossil fuel activist Jill Antares Hunkler (whom we had never heard of before) testified before the same House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s environment subcommittee that Swedish special needs child (and minor celebrity) Greta Thunberg testified before on Earth Day. The two (plus others) peddled the same tired lies they always peddle about fossil fuels in general, and the Ohio shale industry in particular. A member of the Ohio O&G industry is standing up to challenge their lies.
Last November Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), filed for a “pre-arranged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
According to an extensive article appearing in the Pipeline & Gas Journal, “the oil and gas industry [in the Marcellus/Utica] is ready to pick up where it left off in 2019.” The Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA) says “2021 is looking up.” However, nobody in the midstream is planning to build new pipelines anytime soon. That spells trouble ahead for prices. Increasing production without new pipeline capacity to transport the increased production to other markets equals stagnant (or even falling) prices.
Ohio’s Seventh District Court recently delivered a ruling that affects landowners/rights owners as well as drillers. In Tomechko v. Garrett (full copy below), the justices ruled that “adverse possession” of shallow gas rights expands to include deep gas rights (i.e. shale rights) in cases where shallow production “modified the subterranean structure.” According to the legal experts at Frost Brown Todd, “the Seventh District’s ruling strains credulity” and has the potential to “have unintended consequences and will almost certainly result in greater uncertainty and litigation.”
Here’s an interesting twist on building new oil and gas pipelines in Ohio. Due to a late filing made by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA), from now on interstate pipeline builders will *not* need to seek and receive a federal section 401 water permit under the Clean Water Act from the Ohio EPA to build the pipeline. Instead, the pipeline builder can just ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12). Ohio EPA has been problematic for pipelines in the past (see 
Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6 law granted billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy is accused of bribing state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million (see 
MPR Supply Chain Solutions (i.e. Mountaineer Products Inc.) operates a 20-acre transloading facility along the shore of the Ohio River in Belmont County (barge, truck, and rail). In 2015 MDN wrote about MPR expanding its frack sand terminal at that location (see