Ohio Launches NARO Chapter for Landowners, Sept. Conference
The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) is a volunteer-led, member-based, nonprofit organization established in 1980 to help U.S. mineral owners. The mission of NARO is to support, advocate, and educate for the empowerment of mineral and royalty owners. There are ten active chapters serving 18 states, including NARO-Pennsylvania and NARO-Appalachia for West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. A relatively new chapter (for us anyway) is NARO-Ohio. The Ohio chapter formed in 2018 when it separated from the Appalachia chapter. NARO-Ohio, like all chapters, did not hold in-person meetings during the pandemic. NARO-Ohio is now back and will hold a statewide convention on Sept. 16-17.
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God help you if you are a midstream company that has to wade through the mountain of federal regulations and codes generated by agencies including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and are subject to those agencies’ arbitrary decisions on what they will and won’t enforce. In what amounts to a game of Simon Says, FERC has just fined M3 Ohio Gathering, Utica East Ohio Midstream, and UEOM NGL Pipelines–all three either current or former owners of two tiny NGL pipelines that flow propane and ethane from the Scio (Ohio) fractionation plant–$30,000 for not filling out a particular form over a six-year period. Thirty grand for a paperwork violation. It is, according to lawyers who watch these things, an escalation, an “aggressive expansion of enforcement” on the part of FERC.
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. There have been plenty of rumors swirling about Ascent, one that says Gulfport Energy is interested in selling to Ascent (see 
Sources whispering to Bloomberg say that Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), is having exploratory talks with Encino Energy about selling itself to/merging with Encino. In March the rumor mill said Gulfport was in talks to sell itself to Ascent Resources (see 
Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted was in Marietta, OH on Thursday for a roundtable discussion regarding the oil and gas industry. The meeting was held at Artex Oil Company and included Energy Transfer, Nine Energy Service, Oil Well Shares (OWS), Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA), Reno Oil and Gas, DeepRock Disposal Solutions, Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP), and Marietta College. The meeting began as a closed-door session but opened to the public (and the press) after a half hour.
Coretrax describes itself as a global well integrity and production optimization expert. Last week the company announced it had completed a world record-breaking project in the Utica Basin. Coretrax successfully deployed its ReLineMNS system across three wells and expanded a total of more than 27,000 feet of tubulars (pipelines) across the campaign. With one of the expandable liners reaching 9,000 feet in its expansion, all installations smashed the previously held record of 7,243 feet by at least 1,000 feet.
Riverbend Energy Group invests in oil and gas wells. The company mainly invests in non-operated oil and gas wells, although it also has some operated wells in its portfolio (and investments in renewables too). In May we told you that Riverbend was, according to sources speaking with Reuters, working with an unnamed investment bank to shop three portfolios of non-operated oil and gas assets for $2 billion–with one of the packages containing Utica Shale assets (see 
On May 24, Cleveland State University researchers quietly published the “Shale Investment Dashboard in Ohio Q1 and Q2 2021” (full copy below). The new report details shale-related investment in Ohio, looking at upstream, midstream, and downstream activities. The investment estimates are from January through June of 2021–the first half of last year. The report shows investment in the Ohio Utica continued to increase last year, during the height of the pandemic. It also shows just two companies drilled 73% of Ohio’s new shale wells and 69% of the money invested in drilling new shale wells in the Buckeye State in 1H21. Which two companies?
The Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA), a trade association with members representing the people and companies directly responsible for the production of crude oil, natural gas, and associated products in Ohio, recently issued its 2022 Community Impact/Sustainability Report. The report (full copy below) is full of interesting facts and figures about the oil and gas industry in Ohio, how that industry benefits every single Ohioan, and how the industry is cleaning up the environment in Ohio. You read that right. O&G is making the environment BETTER in Ohio.
The Bidenistas at the Dept. of Interior breathlessly announced the agency is (finally) releasing $33 million to plug 277 orphaned oil and gas wells across the country located on federal lands. The average price per plugging is $119,000. Spending $33 million to plug wells on federal lands is chump change compared to the $4.7 billion allocated for plugging old wells under the so-called Biden infrastructure bill. Why is the government paying $119K to plug wells that normally cost maybe $50,000 to plug? We’ll answer that question with another question. Why does the government pay $400 for a hammer it could buy at Lowes for $18?
Riverbend Energy Group is, according to its website, “a multi-faceted investment firm, utilizing risk-weighted deal evaluation processes to deploy capital into a variety of investment theses in the U.S. energy sector.” Which is gobbledegook for “we invest in oil and gas wells.” The company mainly invests in non-operated oil and gas wells, although it also has some operated wells in its portfolio (and investments in renewables too). Riverbend is, according to sources speaking with Reuters, working with an unnamed investment bank to shop three portfolios of non-operated oil and gas assets–with one of them containing Utica Shale assets.
How much of an effort is “enough” when a surface landowner in Ohio tries to locate the owner(s) of the belowground mineral rights under his or her land using the Dormant Mineral Act (DMA), with an eye toward reclaiming those rights? Is it enough to search the public record archive in only the county where the land is located? The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled in two cases to say no, it’s not enough to run a quick search in one county when attempting to locate mineral rights owners.