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20 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jul 29 – Aug 4
For the week of July 29 – August 4, a total of 20 permits were issued to drill new shale wells in Marcellus/Utica, with the vast majority issued in Ohio. The Buckeye State had 13 new permits, with seven going to EOG Resources split between Noble and Carroll counties. Four permits went to Encino Energy in Harrison County. Two permits were issued to INR (Infinity Natural Resources) in Guernsey County. Pennsylvania issued six new permits last week, with four going to Range Resources in Washington County and two to Snyder Brothers in Armstrong County. West Virginia had just one new permit issued to Southwestern Energy in Marshall County.
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Ascent Resources, founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately held company focusing 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its second quarter 2024 update on Wednesday. The company posted a 5% increase in net production to 2,190 MMcfe/d (2.19 Bcfe/d) compared to a year ago. Ascent is pivoting to produce more liquids, including oil and NGLs — although the emphasis is on producing more NGLs.
Once a month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Starting in June, the EIA axed its monthly Drilling Productivity Report that focused on shale plays and instead rolled it into the monthly STEO (see 
Here’s a court case that flew under the radar until now. It’s a case that has the potential to affect some drillers and some royalty owners in Ohio. Sabre Energy Corporation (the plaintiff) sued Gulfport Energy Corporation and Antero Resources Corporation (the defendants) for breach of contract. Sabre Energy owns Overriding Royalty Interests (ORRIs), or fractional shares, in defendants’ shares of royalties from their oil and gas leases. Sabre Energy contends that these ORRIs attach to defendants’ recently drilled deep horizontal wells, and so the defendants owe it royalties.
AES Indiana, formerly known as Indianapolis Power & Light Company, is a utility company providing electric service to the city of Indianapolis. It is a subsidiary and largest utility of AES Corporation. AES Indiana said yesterday that it wants to invest $1.1 billion in Pike County, IN, to convert the company’s two remaining coal-fired power plants to run natural gas instead. Let the howls of protest begin!
As we’ve discussed many times before, the price for natural gas (especially the NYMEX futures price) is primarily determined by supply and demand — Economics 101. When there is too much supply with the same or less demand, prices go down. And boy, have they gone down! The problem we’ve struggled with all this year is too much supply. A number of drillers (many in the Marcellus/Utica) have pulled back on production to take some of the supply off the table. A good measure of supply is the inventory or storage number. Natural gas is stored during the “summer” season for use later during the “winter” season. As we began the injection “summer” season earlier this year, natgas inventories were 39% above the five-year average. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts inventories will have dropped to 6% above the five-year average by the end of October.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Michelin investing $50M on natgas boiler facility in Rubbertown; NATIONAL: Walz says there is no guarantee of free speech; Carbon dioxide pipeline battle – seize land for green energy; Greenhouse gases are a scientific myth; U.S. crude production hits all-time high; INTERNATIONAL: World Energy Council urges change to energy transition approach.
A section of the recently completed 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was shut down on Tuesday for “pigging” operations and maintenance. Certain sections of MVP have dropped to zero flows, while other sections have dropped to drastically lower flows. We’ll ask the questions no one else will: Why the heck is MVP shutting down a section of a pipeline completed less than two months ago? Is there a concern? And, is it normal for a brand new pipeline that came online within the past two months to experience an outage like this for pigging maintenance?
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Buffalo, NY, is the parent company for Marcellus/Utica driller Seneca Resources and the parent of midstream company NFG Midstream (and subsidiary Empire Pipeline). Last week, NFG issued its latest quarterly update. During the quarter (considered the company’s third quarter), Seneca produced 96.5 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of natural gas, an increase of 2% from the prior year. Due to the sucky prices for natural gas, Seneca curtailed (shut-in) 5.6 Bcf during the quarter. Among the tidbits we picked up on is that NFG is about to officially file an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a new project.
Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), reported its second quarter 2024 numbers earlier this week. The company drills Utica and Marcellus wells in Ohio. It also has an active drilling program in the Oklahoma SCOOP shale play. Gulfport’s net daily production for 2Q24 averaged 1,050.1 MMcfe/d, up from 2Q23’s average of 1,039.3 MMcfe/d. Production in 2Q consisted of 836.9 MMcfe/d in the Utica/Marcellus (80%) and 213.2 MMcfe/d in the SCOOP (20%). The production mix was comprised of approximately 92% natural gas, 6% natural gas liquids (NGLs), and 2% oil and condensate. Gulfport brass talked up the Marcellus during a conference call with analysts.
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 story of oil giant EOG joining the Utica party (see 
The CEO of the Energy Association of PA who is also a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) asks this question: What can Pennsylvania lawmakers do about a looming regional power shortage that they didn’t cause and can’t easily fix? He says this dilemma poses the most important energy issue facing the commonwealth today. He’s certainly not against renewable energy, but he points out in an op-ed appearing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that coal and natural gas-fired power plants are “retiring prematurely” for several reasons, and renewables can’t handle the load. The predictable end result will be blackouts in the PJM region.
Pipeline giant Williams, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and the owner of the mighty Transco pipeline that flows huge quantities of M-U gas south and southwest, issued its second quarter 2024 update yesterday. CEO Alan Armstrong called attention to the “crisp execution of key projects” that will benefit the company. Among those projects was the BIG news that the company’s Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project went fully online on August 1st. Also prominently mentioned was the completion of the company’s Marcellus South gathering expansion project.