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20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 29 – Feb 4
There were 20 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, versus 27 permits issued during the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 12 new permits last week. Ohio issued 6 new permits. West Virginia issued 2 new permits last week. We had a tie for the company receiving the most permits. Seneca Resources received 4 permits to drill in Tioga County, PA, and Ascent Resources received 4 permits to drill in Harrison County, OH.
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Reuters is reporting a rumor, based on “people familiar with the matter,” that EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas driller in the United States (by production), is shopping its 25% non-operated interest in a number of producing gas wells in northeastern Pennsylvania for $3 billion. Chesapeake Energy is the majority owner and operator of the wells.
Spanish-owed Repsol owns (at last check) around 214,000 net acres of leases in the Marcellus Shale, primarily located in northeastern Pennsylvania in Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties. Early last year (in January 2022), Repsol closed on a deal to buy Rockdale Marcellus out of bankruptcy for $222 million, adding Rockdale’s 66 producing wells on 42,897 net acres to Resol’s extensive Marcellus portfolio (see 
Epsilon Energy, a relatively small company, used to concentrate most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells. However, over the past year or so, the company has expanded into other plays and now owns assets in the Anadarko (Oklahoma and Texas) and the Permian (Texas and New Mexico). Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy (in the Marcellus), and the other company typically does the drilling. The company’s net gas production during 3Q23 was 2.0 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in total, NOT per day. That amounts to an average of 21.5 MMcfe/d (million cubic feet per day), down 14% compared to 2Q23 due to seven PA wells being offline for workover operations. Epsilon generated revenues of $6.3 million for 3Q23, down 3% from 2Q23.
A Susquehanna County, PA judge recently ruled against fractivist lawyers looking for a quick payday in a “Dimock” case stretching back to 2017. In a damning decision against the lawyers, the judge said they repeatedly refused to provide documents in the case even though ordered to by the judge. Not only that, but the lawyers destroyed evidence! They destroyed computers with emails and documents, and even destroyed hard-copy documents, to avoid handing them over to the court. Next up is a trial to determine how much the plaintiff (Coterra Energy) will receive after being wronged by these fractivist lawyers.
In August, the Executive Director of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) approved 34 water-use permits for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties. We’re just learning of the action via an official notice published in the Sept. 23 edition of the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The approvals, which are NOT subject to public review according to SRBC regulations, are general water permits. Each site will be required to receive a specific water withdrawal approval at a later date.
Is there now a truce in the long-running dispute between Epsilon Energy and Chesapeake Energy over drilling new wells in Susquehanna County, PA? Perhaps! Yesterday, Epsilon, a small publicly-traded energy company that joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, with the other company doing the drilling, announced that “the operator of our upstream assets in the Marcellus recently notified us of near-term drilling plans on our acreage.” While not named, the “operator” must be Chessy. Epsilon has an ongoing lawsuit against Chesapeake for refusing to drill new wells on its jv acreage.