Hog Lick to Begin Work on ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub Depot
Last November, MDN told you about Clean Fuel Services LLC, a subsidiary of Hog Lick Aggregates LLC, one of fourteen partner companies from West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania providing hydrogen production, offtake, and connective infrastructure for the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) project (see Clean Fuel Services to Build Hydrogen Depot in WV, Part of ARCH2). Clean Fuel’s role is to develop a hydrogen fuel depot in Fairmont (Marion County), WV, as part of ARCH2. The depot will provide a “one-stop-shop” for customers transitioning heavy-duty and medium-duty trucks, construction equipment, delivery vehicles, and bus fleets from diesel to hydrogen.
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Writing for Hart Energy’s Oil and Gas Investor magazine, author Nissa Darbonne penned a fabulous overview of the Utica, bringing us the history of oil drilling in Ohio (in the 1800s) all the way up to the present day and Encino Energy’s dominance in oil drilling in the Utica. The article includes details about Encino and other companies, including Infinity Natural Resources and EOG Resources. Yesterday, we brought you the secrets of the fracking recipe in the Utica used by Encino and INR (see 
Here’s a bit of good news, possibly. The Freeport LNG export facility, located on Quintana Island, near Freeport, Texas, currently exports 15.3 million metric tons per annum (MTPA). That is when it’s up and running. The plant was most recently down for most of July following a visit by Hurricane Beryl (see 
In January, Joementia announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 17 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: TSTC to incorporate LNG into curriculum; Gulf Coast export terminals vie for NGL and crude oil market share; NATIONAL: US natgas producers eye more output cuts as prices sink; INTERNATIONAL: Aramco says oil demand strong, recent selloff an overreaction; French imports of Russia’s liquified natural gas surge; Russia uses fertilizer exports to evade natural gas sanctions; Approval delays push Australia’s Woodside closer to the U.S.
EOG Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drillers in the U.S. (with international operations in Trinidad and China), owns nearly a half million acres of leases in the Ohio Utica. EOG calls its position the “Ohio Utica combo play” and now considers it one of the company’s “premium plays.” EOG concentrates on oil drilling in the Utica. As part of the company’s second quarter 2024 update, Jeff Leitzell, EOG’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) said the company added another 10,000 acres of leases to its Utica portfolio during 2Q (now at 445,000 acres). He also said the company is currently focusing on 225,000 acres that are in the “volatile oil window” of the Utica.
Southwestern Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and Louisiana Haynesville, issued its second quarter update last week. You may recall that Southwestern agreed earlier this year to a deal to be acquired by and merged into Chesapeake Energy (see 
Every major public “upstream” (exploration and production) company invests in finding and developing reserves — except one, which happens to be the largest owner of wells in the country. Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. The company doesn’t do any of its own drilling from scratch. It buys wells drilled long ago (or, in some cases, still under development).
Writing for Hart Energy’s Oil and Gas Investor magazine, author Nissa Darbonne penned a fabulous overview of the Utica, bringing us the history of oil drilling in Ohio (in the 1800s) all the way up to the present day and Encino Energy’s dominance in oil drilling in the Utica. The article includes details about Encino and other companies, including Infinity Natural Resources and EOG Resources. Yesterday, we brought you details about the founding and current status of INR (see 
We have often marveled at the innovation in the oil and gas industry that happens each year. When we first began to write about shale drilling in 2009, a long horizontal lateral was perhaps a mile. Today, there are wells that go over four miles underground! In 2009, it might take two months for a rig to drill a new well. Today, it’s done in a few weeks. The rigs operating today are doing the work of three to four times the same number just a few years ago. It’s astonishing. The end result is that shale drilling has gotten “leaner and meaner” and has resulted in lowered costs.
A major change in ownership is coming for gas-fired power plants through the Marcellus/Utica region as well as New England. Quantum Capital Group announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cogentrix Energy, an independent power producer, from another investment firm (Carlyle) for $3 billion. The Cogentrix portfolio is comprised of 5.3 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power plants located throughout PJM (the M-U region), ERCOT (Texas), and ISO-NE (New England). M-U molecules feed most power plants in PJM and ISO-NE, ergo our molecules will feed the plants changing hands.
Coterra Energy, formed by the merger of Cabot Oil & Gas (drills for natural gas in the Marcellus) and Cimarex Energy (drills for oil in the Permian and Anadarko basins), issued its second quarter 2024 update on Friday. The company turned in respectable financial numbers, making a profit of $220 million in 2Q24, up 5% from the $209 million it made in 2Q23. Unfortunately, there was bad news for the Marcellus. The company has just trimmed another 325 MMcf/d of production across the Marcellus basin, and once the three pads it is actively drilling have concluded in October, no new drilling is planned.
Antero Resources, which is 100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica with over 500,000 net acres under lease (and the largest M-U driller in West Virginia), issued its second quarter 2024 update last week. The company reports net production averaged 3.4 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) during 2Q24, an increase of 1% year-over-year (i.e., pretty much the same as last year). Of the company’s 2024 production, liquids (NGLs) averaged 212 thousand barrels per day (MBbl/d), an increase of 10% from 2Q23. Natural gas production averaged 2.1 Bcf/d, down 4% from 2Q23. The company lost $66 million in 2Q24 versus losing $83 million in 2Q23. The bleeding slowed, but the company is still bleeding.
In March 2021, Eureka Resources announced plans to build a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility in Dimock (Susquehanna County), Pennsylvania (see