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Weekly Shale Drilling Permits for PA, OH, WV: May 17-23
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week, but the numbers were all down. Pennsylvania issued just 8 permits with 6 in the northeastern part of the state and 2 in the southwestern region. Ohio issued four permits, all for the same driller on the same well pad in the same county. And West Virginia issued just one new permit for last week.
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The judge in a lawsuit initiated by Cabot Oil & Gas against a Susquehanna County, PA landowner and his lawyers has had it up to here with the ongoing stonewalling and delay tactics by the landowner’s lawyers. “Four years we’ve been spinning our wheels on this nonsense,” the judge said. “The court is extremely frustrated, to put it politely.” The judge bordered on being impolite at a hearing last Thursday…
We’re devastated. We know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but we do. Our favorite Marcellus/Utica driller for years has been Cabot Oil & Gas. We know some great folks who work for Cabot. It has been a peerless operator in the northeast Marcellus–making money when nobody else could. Cabot treats its landowners well, cares about the environment, gives big money to local nonprofit causes, and in general is the best kind of corporate citizen anybody could wish for. We suppose it was only a matter of time before Cabot became a target in this merger mania we’re currently going through. This morning Cabot announced a “merger of equals” with Cimarex, a big driller in the Permian and Midcontinent. The truth is Cimarex is buying out Cabot.
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t typically do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon issued its first-quarter update last Thursday. The company’s Marcellus net gas production averaged 27.4 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) in 1Q21, compared to 30.3 MMcf/d of net gas production in 1Q20 (a 10% decrease). However, revenues were up a big 31% in 1Q21 vs. 1Q20.
Cabot Oil & Gas is and has been (for years) one of the premier drillers in the Marcellus Shale. Cabot concentrates their drilling in one location in northeastern Pennsylvania: Susquehanna County. Cabot has lower costs to drill than almost any other driller. They also turn a profit year after year, unlike many other drillers. During 1Q21 Cabot made $126 million in net income, versus $54 million in 1Q20. Yet the company’s stock price continues to languish, something that has CEO Dan Dinges “hacked off.”
We hate reporting these kinds of stories because of the pain and suffering experienced by the family involved, but report it we must. A contract worker (46-year-old man) who was working at a Cabot Oil & Gas well pad off Hoag Hill Road in Rush Twp. (Susquehanna County, PA) around midnight Tuesday was injured at the pad and rushed to the hospital in Montrose, PA. He later died at the hospital.
Last week MDN told you that Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA, had sued its joint venture partner Chesapeake Energy over Chessy’s refusal to allow Epsilon to drill four shale wells on land Chessy doesn’t want to drill (see 
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t typically do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Just yesterday our headline story was about Epsilon suing Chesapeake over Chessy’s refusal to honor a jv agreement and allow Epsilon to drill four wells in Susquehanna County, PA (see 
Eureka Resources currently operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, two in Williamsport (Lycoming County), PA (where the company is headquartered), and one in Wysox (Bradford County), PA. In October 2019 the company began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at its Wysox facility (see 
At some point in the distant past (during our lifetime) swamps got renamed to “wetlands.” Don’t you just love how the left euphemizes everything? Chesapeake Energy is a bad actor when it comes to shafting landowners out of royalties, we’ll grant you that. However, the company must now pay Pennsylvania and the federal government (DOJ and EPA) a combined $1.9 million for “failure to identify and protect wetlands at 76 oil and gas well sites in Pennsylvania.” In other words, failure to protect swamps.