24 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Dec 18 – 31
We are catching up on permits issued…for the last two weeks of December. Normally we cover permits issued for a single week. This report covers permits issued for the two weeks covering Dec. 18 – 31. Perhaps it’s a good thing we’re reporting on two weeks as Ohio’s ODNR seems to have taken the last two weeks of the year off, issuing just a single permit. There were 24 new permits issued for the final two weeks of the year, cumulatively, versus 35 permits issued for Dec. 11 – 17. Pennsylvania issued 19 new permits for the final two weeks of last year. Ohio issued just 1. And West Virginia issued 4 permits. Range Resources took the top spot with 9 permits issued in Washington County, PA.
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Hope Gas provides natural gas service to approximately 131,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in thirty-five West Virginia counties. In October, Hope closed on acquiring the West Virginia division of Peoples Gas for an undisclosed amount, giving the company another 13,000 customers (see
Diversified Energy Company, with major assets in the Appalachian region (including the Marcellus/Utica), announced yesterday the company had sold a majority stake in an unspecified number of Appalachian conventional oil and gas wells to an investment company called DP Lion Equity Holdco, for $200 million.
In what has become a repeating pattern, indicating we may have hit bottom, last week, the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count added two rigs, going from 620 two weeks ago to 622 last week. The pattern is to lose a few and then gain a few every couple of weeks. After Pennsylvania lost a rig two weeks ago (see
Friday afternoon, CNX Resources issued a press release to announce it is officially pulling out of the previously announced multi-billion-dollar clean ammonia manufacturing facility in southern West Virginia, part of the ARCH2 (Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub) project. Adams Fork Energy, Haldor Topsoe, and CNX announced the project in April with much fanfare (see
The slight rise in the national rig count, with the count going up by one or two rigs a week over the past five weeks (what we call a “dead cat bounce”), is over. The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count lost ground again last week. The count went from 626 active rigs two weeks ago down to 623 last week. The Marcellus/Utica stayed even at 41 active rigs last week.
Yesterday, representatives from Tenaska gave a presentation to the Hancock County (WV) Commission detailing the company’s plans to drill carbon dioxide (CO2) injection wells in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The company anticipates drilling seven CO2 injection wells/sites in WV, 12 wells/sites in OH, and three wells/sites in PA. Tenaska has established an office in Weirton, WV, as it works toward establishing its carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) process in the region. It hopes to have wells operations by 2027.
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, based in Houston, TX, is the national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector. The Council reports jobs in the O&G sector increased in November, adding 1,286 jobs. The O&G industry employs 652,398 jobs across the country, just 54,130 jobs away from returning to pre-pandemic levels. And how much do those jobs pay? The average hourly earnings for frontline oil-and-gas workers rose 1.3% in October from the previous month to $44.11, according to a Labor Department report released last week.
Hope Gas is a Local Distribution Company (LDC) that provides gas service to approximately 125,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in thirty-five West Virginia counties. The company owns and maintains more than 6,900 miles of pipelines that safely deliver West Virginia natural gas to many homes and commercial or industrial sites. In September, Hope Gas asked the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia for permission to build a new 30-mile pipeline in Monongalia County (see
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count hit a new low for 2023 five weeks ago (see