EVEP 2014 – Still Shifting from E&P to Midstream in the Utica
Quick: Which company holds the most combined Utica Shale acreage in OH & PA? Is it Chesapeake? Range? Chevron? Nope. It may surprise you that the #1 acreage holder, according to NGI’s Shale Play Factbook, is EV Energy Partners (EVEP). They own outright, or as part of joint ventures, interest in 903,000 Utica Shale acres (747,000 in OH and 156,000 in PA). MDN has long chronicled how this “accidental” Utica kingpin has been trying to unload their Utica acreage, first in big deals, later in smaller deals (see our EVEP category of stories here).
EVEP is certainly not leaving the Utica. They just want to unload the E&P part of their operation (drilling) and instead concentrate on the midstream (pipelines & processing plants). Yesterday the company issued their fourth quarter and full year 2013 update and management conducted the ubiquitous analyst phone call to explain where the company has been in 2013 and where they are heading in 2014. We have both the update and a portion of the phone call transcript below. Bottom line: More emphasis on midstream in 2014, continued Utica drilling (via jv partners like Chesapeake and EQT), and more sales of Utica acreage when/if buyers come along…
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Does Aubrey McClendon have a wandering eye? Is he a shale play philanderer? It seems to us that since Aubrey was shown to the door of his own company (Chesapeake Energy) last year by corporate raider Carl Ichan, the only word to come out of Aubrey’s mouth has been “Utica.” It’s been Utica this and Utica that. He’s now raised more than $2.9 billion (!) for Utica Shale land acquisition and drilling (see 
In August of 2012 staffers at the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) made a boo-boo. They put into writing (in the form of a 13-page memo, embedded below) a draft plan to promote Utica Shale drilling under (not on) Sunfish Creek State Forest (in Monroe County), under (not on) Barkcamp State Park (in Belmont County), and under (not on) Wolf Run State Park (Noble County). The memo begins by saying there will be a communications problem to solve: “An initiative to proactively open state park and forest land to horizontal drilling/hydraulic fracturing will be met with zealous resistance by environmental activist opponents, who are skilled propagandists. Neutral parties in particular — such as ordinary citizens concerned about their families’ health — will be vulnerable to messaging by opponents that the initiative represents dangerous and radical state policy by Gov. Kasich.” (emphasis original) The memo states later on that, “Anti-fracking activists will attempt to legally and physically disrupt or halt the drilling projects, including staging dangerous protests on state lands. (This will require sustained legal countermeasures and crisis readiness by ODNR.)”