Fresh Legal Look at Ohio Royalty Post-Production Deductions
Back in April, MDN brought you news about an important decision issued in a federal court case (in Ohio) that potentially affects landowners and drillers with shale leases throughout the Marcellus/Utica (see 6th Circuit Upholds OH Landowner Claims Against Antero re Deductions). The case, The Grissoms, LLC v. Antero Resources Corporation, was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (6th Circuit) on April 2, 2025. The case involves a dispute between a certified class of 370 Ohio landowners and Antero. According to a law firm writing about the decision, “This case is more than just a win for those plaintiffs. It sets the stage for future mineral owners in their efforts to fight royalty deductions by clarifying a commonly used oil and gas lease provision.” Read More “Fresh Legal Look at Ohio Royalty Post-Production Deductions”
Morgantown, WV-based Hope Utilities announced yesterday that its subsidiary, Northeast Ohio Natural Gas Corporation (NEO), will build, operate, and maintain a pipeline (and associated natural gas facilities) to supply a fuel cell project being developed by American Electric Power (AEP) to power a data center in central Ohio. The details are (so far) thin. We don’t know how much the project will cost or which data center it will power. This isn’t the first such pipeline project announced to feed an AEP-powered data center. 
Rover Pipeline, a 713-mile natural gas pipeline, was designed to carry up to 3.25 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus and Utica gas from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio to destinations in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and Canada. The project was completed and came online in late 2018 (see 
Infinity Natural Resources (INR), headquartered in Morgantown, WV, focuses 100% on the Marcellus/Utica. The company went public earlier this year with a $265 million ($20/share) initial public offering, giving INR a $1.18 billion market capitalization (see 
Yes, we’re suckers for a good railroad story. Always have been, always will be. And here’s one! FTAL Infrastructure owns short line and terminal switching operator Transtar and is an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group. It’s kind of a Matryoshka doll (a Russian “nesting” doll of one thing inside another). Transtar, owned by FTAL, which is owned by Fortress, is buying the Wheeling & Lake Erie (W&LE) regional railroad for $1.05 billion. W&LE, headquartered in Brewster (Stark County), Ohio, owns 840 miles of track in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. 
We first told you about a frac sand company called Smart Sand some 13 years ago (see 
Last week, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count continued its downward trend, losing another rig to end at 539 active rigs nationwide. The count has been down 14 of the last 15 weeks, with the only slight increase happening a month ago. The Marcellus/Utica count remained the same (after gaining one rig three weeks ago) at a combined 36 active rigs. PA is running 18 active rigs. OH is running 11 rigs. And WV is operating 7 rigs. There were 24 rigs targeting the Marcellus and 12 rigs targeting the Utica last week. 
EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in several other countries) announced at the end of May it had made a deal to buy Encino Energy and Encino’s massive Ohio Utica Shale assets for $5.6 billion (see 
Ascent Resources, founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately held company focusing 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and one of the largest natural gas producers in the U.S. The company issued its second quarter 2025 update yesterday. Net production for the quarter averaged 2,034 MMcfe/d (2.0 Bcfe/d), consisting of 1,738 MMcf/d of natural gas, 13,033 bbls/d of oil, and 36,385 bbls/d of natural gas liquids (NGLs), putting liquids at 15% of the overall production mix for the quarter. 
Gulfport Energy is the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled). The company emerged from bankruptcy four years ago with a new board and new management in May 2021 (see 
Something is clearly wrong in Pennsylvania. Over the past three years, PA has plugged a little over 300 old orphaned (no current owner) wells (see 
Data centers are all the rage these days. It seems like a new data center is announced weekly somewhere in the Eastern U.S. Ohio has its fair share of them coming to the Buckeye State (
In January 2023, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
We spotted a fascinating Hart Energy article that summarizes information from a recently released Mizuho Securities study. Mizuho researcher Nitin Kumar says that we are roughly halfway through the shale revolution. He posits that approximately 290,000 horizontal wells have been landed in shale rock in the Lower 48 and that under current economic conditions and with current technology, another 270,000 locations remain. It will take another 25 years to drill them, says Kumar. Which is interesting, although we take some issue with those findings. However, embedded in the statistics is something that caught our attention: the value of undeveloped acreage in various shale plays, including the Marcellus.