Ohio Passes Bill Punishing Illegal Protesters at O&G Sites
Anti-fossil fuelers love to protest things. Fine. Let them protest. This is (still) America. But when antis tip over into illegal acts like blocking legal activities of building pipelines or drilling wells, or when antis tip over into acts of vandalism like destroying equipment, that’s NOT okay. Antis call it “protesting.” We call it criminal behavior. A bill just passed in the Ohio legislature calls such activity what it is–crimes. And now (provided Gov. DeWine signs the bill into law, which is expected), such miscreants will pay stiff fines and in some cases do jail time for their crimes.
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Last week Pennsylvania issued 21 new shale well drilling permits scattered across both northeast and southwest PA. Ohio issued 5 new shale well permits, all of them to the same company and the same well pad. West Virginia issued 3 new shale well permits, all in different counties.
By now it’s a cliche to say that 2020 has been an exceptional year–and not in a good way. For the first time in our memory of writing MDN, we witnessed widespread curtailments or “shut-ins” of wells in the Marcellus/Utica during 2020. That is, drillers voluntarily turned the values off and flowed less gas in a bid to (a) not sell the gas at prices that don’t return a profit, and (b) drive up the price of gas (see 
There is an ongoing question of whether or not the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), which impacts Utica shale rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by the Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA). In February 2019, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights. The Seventh Circuit then ruled in a second case in April 2019, reaffirming yet again that yes, MTA applies to mineral rights. The Seventh Circuit ruled in a third case in October 2019 to say YES, the MTA still applies. In April, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to hear and rule on the matter too (see 
A long-stalled request for permits to build two wastewater injection wells in Belmont County, Ohio has just gotten a boost from the Ohio Supreme Court. Last year MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells near St. Clairsville (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you a post about the dramatic increase in natural gas-fired electric plants in the Marcellus/Utica, particularly Pennsylvania (see 
After selling Rice Energy to EQT in 2017, the four Rice brothers, all of whom worked at Rice Energy (and left after the merger), launched a new venture (see 
Ascent Resources has listed for sale two “packages” of its assets in the core of the Utica Shale in Ohio. One package contains a non-operated interest in 68 wells and 1,362 net leasehold acres. The second package includes a royalty interest in 10 wells and 106 net revenue interest acres. Details on where the assets are located (which counties) and other details are in the listing below.
The plot thickens in the $60 million FirstEnergy nuclear subsidy bribery scandal. Last week MDN brought you the news that Ohio’s Attorney General, David Yost, had filed a second lawsuit to stop the collection of money from ratepayers that funds $150 million annual payments to FirstEnergy provided for under the law known as House Bill 6 (see 
Yesterday Rising Phoenix Royalties (RPR) announced it has purchased the future royalty payments from a landowner in the Utica Shale, in Monroe County, OH. This acquisition is RPR’s third Marcellus/Utica transaction this year.