Utica Shale

Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Hess Cuts Utica Drilling Budget 42% for 2015
January 27, 2015January 27, 2015

Hess Corporation, with some 90,000 leased acres in the Ohio Utica Shale, announced yesterday they are whacking their Utica budget, reducing it by 42% for 2015. Last year Hess spent $500 million in the Utica. This year they plan to spend $290 million and drill 20-25 wells (around $11-$12 million per well). Hess will continue their joint venture with CONSOL Energy in the Ohio Utica. Here’s the announcement from yesterday:
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Columbiana County | Ohio | Utica Shale

Utica Drilling Still Going Strong in Northern Ohio/Columbiana County
January 27, 2015January 27, 2015

Although the received wisdom is that natural gas drilling in Ohio has “moved south” to places like Belmont, Harrison, Guernsey, Noble and Monroe counties, the fact remains there is still a strong and stead program of drilling in counties further north–like Carroll and Columbiana. Point in fact: Who’s drilling in Columbiana County, where are they drilling, and how much are they drilling? We have the latest stats that show a still-thriving Utica Shale industry in Columbiana…
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Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio | Triad Hunter | Utica Shale | Washington County (OH)

OH Village Gets $307K Signing Bonus, 18.25% Royaly to Lease 72 Acres
January 22, 2015January 22, 2015

Last night, the village of New Matamoras, in Washington County, OH, was handed a check for $307,687.25. The general fund budget for all of 2014 was $121,368! The check came from MNW Energy, which is acting as the land broker for Triad Hunter (a division of Magnum Hunter Resources). The money is the up-front lease signing bonus for 72 acres of village owned-land that Triad plans to drill under. The payment amounts to a signing bonus of $4,275 per acre. When and if Triad drills, the village will get an 18.25% royalty on all gas/liquids produced. The biggest “problem” Matamoras had was how to cash the check! The next “problem” they have is how they’ll spend it. Here’s the low-down…
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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Ohio | Statewide OH | Total | Utica Shale

Total Scales Back Investment in Utica Shale, Blames Low Oil Price
January 21, 2015January 21, 2015

Total (pronounced “toe-tail”), is a French multinational integrated oil and gas company and one of the six “supermajor” oil companies in the world. Yesterday the relatively new CEO of Total, Patrick Pouyanne, announced that he’s scaling back in the North Sea fields and in U.S. shale plays. In 2012, Total plowed more than $2 billion into the Utica Shale, partnering with Chesapeake Energy (see Chesapeake Sells More of its Utica Leases to Total). In September 2014, Total sold off a smallish investment they had in Cardinal Midstream, a Utica midstream company, to South Korean investors for $400 million (see Total, EVEP Sell Interest in Cardinal Midstream to S Koreans for $612M). Patrick Pouyanne became CEO of Total last October after a freak runway accident killed Total’s colorful and long-time CEO Christophe de Margerie (see French Supermajor Total CEO Killed in Freak Runway Accident). Pouyanne is now making his mark on the company. He blames the plunge in oil prices for his action. Here’s what Pouyanne said at a conference in Davos, Switzerland earlier this morning…
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Energy Companies | Gulfport Energy | Marshall County | Ohio County | Utica Shale | West Virginia

Gulfport Energy Enters WV Utica, Leases in Ohio/Marshall Counties
January 19, 2015January 19, 2015

Looks like Gulfport Energy, with 184,000 acres of leases and an active driller in eastern Ohio’s Utica Shale, is making moves into the West Virginia Utica Shale. We spotted an article that says Gulfport has purchased an 87.5% stake in “hundreds of lease agreements” in Ohio and Marshall counties in WV. We don’t know how many acres are involved (yet). But we do know who they’ve purchased the leases from…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Monroe County | Ohio | Utica Shale

Antero Resources 4Q14: Just Paid $20K/Acre for More Utica Leases
January 16, 2015January 16, 2015

Antero Resources, one of the biggest Marcellus/Utica Shale drillers, issued their fourth quarter operations and hedging report on Wednesday. The report includes a lot of 2014 summary information. It’s an important update with a lot of juicy information contained in it. Perhaps the juiciest is buried near the end: Antero closed on a deal to pick up another 12,000 Utica acres, most of it located in Monroe County, OH, from an undisclosed third party. Antero paid an eye-popping $240 million–or $20,000 per acre! The land does have five producing shale wells and an 8-mile pipeline. Figure the wells are worth $8M each (the cost to drill them) and the pipeline is worth $1M per mile, another $8M (this is very rough, back of the envelope stuff). Deducting that from the price you still get $16,000 per acre for the undeveloped land. Yikes. Here’s the other things that caught our eye about the update…
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Energy Companies | Halcon Resources | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Halcon Resources: Slashes Drilling Budget 50%, No Utica for 2015
January 12, 2015January 12, 2015

As MDN chronicled in March 2014, Halcon Resources, with some 140,000 net acres in the Ohio Utica Shale, quit drilling in the Utica, at least for the balance of 2014 (see Halcon Resources Stops Drilling, Gives Up on the Utica Shale). That now holds true for 2015 as well. In a statement about their drilling program released late last week, Halcon indicated they have revised their drilling budget down by nearly 50%–from the previous $750-$800 million to $375-$425 million. They’re also reducing the number of drilling rigs from 11 rigs to 3–and none of them will be operating in the Utica Shale…
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Decline/Depletion Rates | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Steep Declines in Production for Some of Utica’s Top Wells
January 7, 2015January 7, 2015

An excellent article by MDN friend and ace reporter Bob Downing appearing in the Akron Beacon Journal tackles the issue of decline rates in Utica Shale wells–that is, how fast production drops off. Bob’s deep dive into the data found that some of the Utica’s top performing wells in January had decreased output by 47%-70% by September. Yikes! No word on how that compares to the decline rate of the Marcellus layer. Here’s a sample of Bob’s analysis…
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Energy Companies | Gulfport Energy | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Gulfport Production Soars in 2014, 6 Active Rigs in OH Utica
January 7, 2015January 7, 2015

On Monday Gulfport Energy, a major driller in the Utica Shale, released a high-level operational update. Gulfport CEO Michael G. Moore said the company produced more oil and gas in the fourth quarter of 2014 than they did in all of 2013. And the Gulfport production engine continues to chug away in the Ohio Utica Shale. Gulfport brought 22 new Utica wells online in 4Q14 and has six rigs currently drilling in the Utica. Gulfport is also wisely “hedged”–meaning they’re getting about $1 per Mcf more for their gas (they currently get $4.12/Mcf) than the current spot rate of ~$3.00/Mcf. Smart…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Research | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Trout Unlimited Says Lake Erie Threatened by Utica Drilling
December 30, 2014December 30, 2014

Trout Unlimited (TU) might have once been populated with reasonable people, but it long ago left behind reasonableness and became a radical “green” group, funded and controlled by anti-drilling foundations (see Trout Unlimited, Other Groups Outted as Radical Green Groups). Even though TU has been exposed as having a radical, anti-drilling agenda, they still pretend, with the help of PBS and others, to be “reasonable” on the issue of shale drilling. When a member of TU says the group isn’t anti-shale, you know you just heard a 100% lie. They ARE anti-shale–to the core. We find it repugnant when mainstream media unquestioningly reports yet another TU spin story. The latest such story says that Utica Shale drilling in the Buckeye State is a “threat” to Lake Erie. TU has just released a so-called report (PowerPoint presentation, really) called “10 Special Places” (full copy embedded below). The “report” highlights 10 areas in the Eastern U.S. that TU says are threatened by Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling–including Lake Erie…
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Energy Companies | Hinto Energy | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Potential New OH Utica Driller First Drills Conventional Oil Well
December 23, 2014December 23, 2014

A very small independent oil and gas company headquartered in Denver, CO, Hinto Energy (market cap of $5.4 million), issued a press release today to say they’ve drilled a shallow, conventional oil well in the Berea Sandstone of Ohio. A conventional driller targeting shallow rock layers is typically not something that catches our attention. The thing that does catch our attention is that Hinto is also eyeing other rock layers for the leases they own in Ohio–including the Utica Shale. Hinto has not previously drilled any horizontal shale wells, from what we can tell. It appears they didn’t even drill this conventional Ohio Berea well as their announcement states they will maintain a “75% non-operated interest” (i.e. ownership) in the well. Non-operated means they didn’t do the drilling. While this isn’t big news by any stretch, it is notable that yet another E&P is sniffing around the Ohio Utica…
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American Energy Partners | Energy Companies | HG Energy | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

McClendon Deal Last June was HG Energy’s OH Utica Acreage/Wells
December 18, 2014December 18, 2014

Columbus Business First is reporting that during this past summer’s wheeling and dealing by Aubrey McClendon and his American Energy Partners (see McClendon Buys 48K WV Marcellus Acres, 27K More OH Utica Acres), McClendon picked up HG Energy’s Ohio Utica Shale acreage–all 27,000 acres–along with HG’s already-drilled Utica Shale wells (in the June announcement HG was simply referred to as “an unnamed private company”). HG Energy has now fully exited the Utica Shale. Oh! Two of the HG wells purchased by McClendon as part of that deal were in the top 10 most productive wells in the state for 3Q14. Yet another smart move by Aubrey…
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Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Utica Shale | Washington County

Range Resources Drills Highest-Ever Initial Producing Utica Well
December 16, 2014December 16, 2014

Yesterday Range Resources released an announcement with two big pieces of news. The first (and lesser) news is this: Range is trimming its 2015 exploration and production budget by 18% compared to what they spent this year. The 2015 capital expenditure budget is now set at $1.3 billion. However, the company says production will continue to increase, even with less spending on drilling. The second and more important news: Range has drilled a Utica Shale well that has dethroned Magnum Hunter’s Utica well (see Magnum Hunter Takes the Prize: Top Producing Utica Well) as being the most initially productive horizontal shale well ever–in the Marcellus, Utica or any other shale play. Range says their Utica well is producing an initial production rate of a mind-blowing 59 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d). In the course of a single month, that one well produces enough gas to heat more than 25,000 U.S. homes for an entire winter. Oh…and just where is Range’s new gargantuan Utica well located? In Washington County, PA…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Summit Midstream | Utica Shale | XTO

XTO Gets Serious in OH Utica, Hires Summit for Gathering System
December 16, 2014December 16, 2014

XTO Energy, wholly-owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil, has an active drilling program in the Marcellus and Utica Shale region. But when was the last time you heard anything about new wells or activity by XTO? The company largely stays off the radar. According to MDN’s Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook, the company gets somewhere between 20-25 new permits every four months to drill in the PA Marcellus. So far this year, XTO has received 11 and 17 permits (Jan-Apr and May-Aug respectively) for new wells in the Ohio Utica Shale, which is the first appreciable drilling done by the company in the Utica. With Utica drilling under way, it must be time to build pipelines to connect the wells–and right on cue, we have an announcement from Summit Midstream Partners that they’ve signed a contract with XTO to build a gathering pipeline network…
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Accidents | Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Monroe County | Ohio | Triad Hunter | Utica Shale

Triad Hunter Well Blowout in Monroe County, OH – No One Injured
December 15, 2014December 15, 2014

On Saturday, Triad Hunter, wholly-owned drilling subsidiary of Magnum Hunter Resources, lost control of a Utica Shale well in Monroe County, OH. The well had been drilled and temporarily plugged as the company planned to drill three more wells at the pad. However, “the well began to flow uncontrollably while recommencing production operations” according to a statement released by Magnum Hunter. Well pad personnel along with 28 homes located within a mile and a half were evacuated. Wild Well Control of Houston has been contacted and (presumably) now on site to contain the well. No injuries have been reported…
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Commodity Price | Crude Oil | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

OOGA Says Some Drilling in OH Stopped by Low Oil Price
December 15, 2014December 15, 2014

Sean Bennett, formerly with Energy in Depth and now senior vice president of the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA), says that low oil prices, if they stay low, will soon affect some drilling in the Ohio Utica Shale. He points to PDC Energy’s recent decision as one example (see PDC Energy Pushes Pause Button on OH Utica Drilling for 2015). But, will low oil prices affect significantly more Utica drilling?…
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