Gas Traders Just Set a Record – What It Means for M-U Landowners
The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — the outfit that owns the New York Stock Exchange and runs the world’s largest energy derivatives markets — put out a press release in mid-July containing a number that ought to catch the eye of every Marcellus/Utica producer and royalty owner. On July 1, open interest in ICE’s North American financial natural gas futures and options markets hit an all-time record of 13.4 million contracts, up 9% from a year ago. “Open interest” is just a fancy way of counting the bets still sitting on the table — contracts that have been opened and not yet closed out or settled. A record means more people than ever are using these markets to lock in a price ahead of time. Which raises the obvious question: lock in a price against what? Read More “Gas Traders Just Set a Record – What It Means for M-U Landowners”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Morrisey touts 50 by 50 plan in addressing oil and gas association; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: EnCap Flatrock announces sale of M6 Midstream to Williams for $5.5B; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures post small gains; Amogy and 2G Energy successfully demonstrate integrated ammonia-to-power generation; The climate Faucis are coming, the climate Faucis are coming!; INTERNATIONAL: Crude sinks as tensions ease; Q3 is set for extreme volatility, oil analysts warn; We’ve lost the war against climate change – time to scrap net zero; India to climate cartel – count us out; Strait of Hormuz crisis shifts LNG’s biggest risk from supply to demand. 
CNX Resources posted its second quarter 2026 results last Thursday, and the numbers tell two stories at once. On the drilling side, CNX is running lean — just 2 wells drilled all quarter. On the financial side, the company spent more buying back its own stock ($199 million) than it spent drilling and completing wells. When a producer would rather buy its own shares than drill, that says something about where gas prices sit right now — and where management thinks they’re headed. 
Enbridge reported second quarter results on Friday, July 31, and buried in a Canadian midstream giant’s quarterly slide deck — a document that is 90% oil sands, Permian, and balance sheet talk — is the best piece of news Appalachian producers have gotten out of New England in fifteen years. Project Beacon, Enbridge’s proposed expansion of the Algonquin Gas Transmission (AGT) system into New England, ran a binding open season from May 18 to July 1. An open season is simply a pipeline asking shippers to raise their hands and commit, in writing, to buy capacity. CEO Greg Ebel told analysts the response “significantly exceeded our initial expectations.” Matthew Akman, who runs Enbridge’s gas transmission business, said Beacon would be “multiple times” the size of the AGT Enhancement project already underway, and that a big enough Beacon could save New England utility customers more than $1 billion a year. 
TC Energy issued its second quarter 2026 update on July 30, and the headline numbers were strong: comparable EBITDA of C$2.9 billion, up 12% over 2Q25, and full-year guidance now tracking the upper end of the C$11.6–$11.8 billion range. Nice, but that’s investor stuff. The news that matters for Marcellus/Utica landowners, drillers, and midstreamers is sitting in the project tables — and in a demand forecast TC has now raised two years running. 
Dominion Energy reported second-quarter 2026 results on July 31, and while Wall Street focused on the penny-counting, there were three items in the release and on the analyst call that matter to Marcellus/Utica producers, midstreamers, and landowners: two new gas-fired power plants moving into permitting, a merger timeline that’s now locked in at the state level, and a nine-figure write-off on renewable assets that tells you which way the wind is actually blowing. 
Every so often the antis tell you exactly what they’re up to, and you just have to sit back and enjoy it. On Saturday, Inside Climate News ran a story on the ongoing campaign by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Clean Air Council, and their friends to jack up setbacks — the required distance between a well pad and the nearest building — from the current 500 feet to distances that would end new shale drilling in Pennsylvania. The new twist? They’ve hitched the campaign to the data center boom. More data centers means more gas, and more gas means (in their telling) more danger, so hurry up and pass the rules. It’s the same petition MDN has been tracking since 2024, dressed in a 2026 outfit. 
Let’s be honest — corporate “sustainability reports” are usually 100+ pages of stock photography, buzzwords, and pie charts about employee engagement. We normally give them a wide berth. But Williams released its 2025 Sustainability Report on July 29, and this one is different. Underneath the ESG wrapping paper is a straight-up growth story, and a surprising amount of it runs directly through the Marcellus and Utica. If you’re a landowner in Licking County, a driller in the Utica dry gas window, or anyone who owns WMB shares, there’s real news here. 
Something of an upset last week for rigs operating in the Marcellus/Utica region. We maintained the same cumulative count of 36 last week, which has been at that level for 12 weeks in a row. However, Ohio lost one rig in the Utica (now operating 10 rigs), while West Virginia gained that lost rig in the Marcellus (now operating 9 rigs). Pennsylvania maintained its rig count of 17. The national count increased by 1 to 588, which ties with a few weeks ago to be the highest national rig count in more than a year. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 19 new drilling permits last week, July 20 – 26, down 7 from two weeks ago. Last week, Pennsylvania issued 10 new permits. Ohio issued 4 new permits. And West Virginia issued 5 new permits. The drillers who received new permits included: Ascent Resources (1), EOG Resources (1), EQT (7), Expand Energy (5), Infinity Natural Resources (2), Range Resources (2), and Snyder Brothers (1). 
Antero Resources, the biggest driller in West Virginia and roughly 11% of all Appalachian production, dropped its second quarter 2026 numbers on July 29 and held its analyst call the next morning. Three things jumped off the page: a record quarter, a dry gas well result that borders on spectacular, and a rare public admission that Antero turned down a power deal in its own backyard because the money wasn’t good enough. 
Antero Midstream Corporation (AM) posted second quarter 2026 results on Tuesday and held its analyst call yesterday morning. A quick word on the corporate plumbing for newer readers: Antero Midstream and Antero Resources (AR) are two separate publicly traded companies that share a management team. AR drills the wells; AM gathers, compresses and moves the gas and handles the water. Different shareholders, same brain trust. The headline number is a good one. AM gathered 4.1 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) during the quarter, a 19% jump year over year and a company record. Compression volumes rose 17%. Most of that growth came from the HG Midstream assets AM bought earlier this year and has now fully digested. Processing and fractionation capacity at AM’s joint venture ran at 100% utilization — you can’t do better than full. 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) — the Williamsville, NY company that drills (Seneca Resources), pipes (NFG Supply Corporation, Empire), and sells gas at the meter (NFG Distribution Corp) — issued its fiscal third quarter update Wednesday evening and talked it over with analysts Thursday morning. NFG’s fiscal year ends September 30, so their “third quarter” is everyone else’s second quarter (April–June). There’s a lot in here for Marcellus/Utica watchers, but two items stand out: Supply Corporation more than tripled the size of its Line N System Upgrade Project, and Seneca is about to start writing big checks to landowners in Tioga County. 
Detroit-based DT Midstream (DTM) reported second quarter 2026 results this week, and while the headline numbers were fine but unremarkable, the Appalachian news buried in the deck is worth your attention. DTM booked net income of $112 million ($1.09 per diluted share) and adjusted EBITDA of $305 million, declared a $0.88 per share dividend, and reaffirmed full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $1.155–$1.225 billion. Fine. Now here’s the part that matters if you own minerals in Belmont County or run a rig crew in Susquehanna County: DTM just signed up a new 380 MMcf/d interconnect on the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline that will feed a gas-fired power plant serving a new data center in Ohio — and it’s expanding its Appalachia Gathering System by 100 MMcf/d to shove more supply into NEXUS and Texas Eastern. 
I&S Inc. of New York, an Allegany-based well servicing company owned by Dan Sessler, is planning a $9 million expansion that will create at least 80 new jobs. The company, which has serviced oil, gas, and solution mining wells since 1988, is purchasing the old Allegany Drive-In property along Route 417 — just up the road from its current headquarters. Plans call for a new 5,000-square-foot office, a 14,400-square-foot commercial shop, and a 9,600-square-foot cold storage warehouse to store pipe for its oil, gas, and solution mining operations. The company secured a 10-year PILOT agreement from the Cattaraugus County IDA. Construction costs are estimated at $7.3 million.