Gulfport’s 4-Mile Utica Wells Producing 2.5+ Bcfe per 1,000 Ft
Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 with a new board and top management. In January of this year, the company appointed a new CEO, John Reinhart, the former President and CEO of M-U driller Montage Resources Corporation before that company was gobbled up by Southwestern Energy (see Marcellus Veteran John Reinhart Joins Gulfport Energy as CEO). The company recently issued its second quarter update. The news coming from that update that caught our eye was that Gulfport is beginning to drill wells in Ohio’s Marcellus layer in addition to the Utica (see Gulfport Drilling Marcellus (Not Utica) Wells in Belmont Co., OH). However, Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo), one of the most trusted, energy-dedicated SaaS platforms, noticed another newsworthy item coming from Gulfport’s update: three of Gulfport’s Utica wells in Monroe County are 4-mile wells, and they are producing more than 2.5 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) per 1,000 feet per day–significantly higher than the company’s average of 1.5 Bcfe/d.
Read More “Gulfport’s 4-Mile Utica Wells Producing 2.5+ Bcfe per 1,000 Ft”
The transient workers in the Ohio Utica Shale field must stay somewhere. That somewhere is typically a hotel or motel. Belmont County, one of the hotbeds of Utica drilling, has many such transient workers. Their overnight stays at area hotels and motels create a big pile of lodging tax revenue, which is used to help fund the Belmont County Tourism Council. And the Council is thankful for it!
Williams CEO Alan Armstrong spoke at the Barclays CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York City yesterday. Certain members of the press were invited to attend (but sadly, not MDN). Armstrong had some interesting things to say at the Barclays soiree. Armstrong engaged in a little smack talk about the recently announced Enbridge deal to buy Dominion Energy’s remaining gas utility businesses for $14 billion (see 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Willie L. Phillips (Democrat) is one of many high-profile speakers appearing on the stage at the Gastech 2023 conference currently underway in Singapore. He delivered some blunt language to leftist kooks who believe we must end the use of fossil energy. Phillips said, “There will be no transition of our energy system?without natural gas.” BOOM. So much for all those Democrat cities and states trying to phase out the use of natural gas. According to one of their own, that’s not happening.
Driftwood LNG, a 27.6 million tonnes of LNG per year facility that will cost on the order of $14.5 billion to build, has not made an official final investment decision (FID) to proceed with the FERC-approved project. However, construction began on the project in March 2022 (see 
What’s the government’s answer to everything? Money! Have a problem, throw money at it, and declare it solved. Need more votes in the next election? Money helps with that, too. Here’s the latest “money solves all problems” proposal from the Dept. of Energy (DOE)… The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced up to $30 million in free money (i.e., grants) for developing advanced technologies to reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas flaring at oil production sites. Cause you know, fugitive methane is toasting Mom Earth into a cinder.
INTERNATIONAL: Oil rallies near nine month high; Fragile LNG market threatens volatility and return to coal; Buoyant LNG industry bets it’s in the energy mix for decades; India’s GAIL to tap spot LNG markets to meet surge in power demand.
Yesterday, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion has agreed to sell what we think (not 100% sure) are the remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt. The deal includes three LDCs–The East Ohio Gas Company, Public Service Company of North Carolina, and Questar Gas Company (along with Wexpro Company). The three LDCs serve about 3 million homes and businesses in Ohio, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho and include 78,000 miles of natural gas distribution, transmission, gathering, and storage pipelines and more than 62 Bcf of working underground and LNG storage capacity. Dominion wants to shed its natgas businesses and focus solely on electrifying everything.
In August, MDN told you about a new $2 billion hydrogen project coming to West Virginia (see 
On Saturday, August 26, a radicalized out-of-state “protester” (i.e., criminal) chained herself to a piece of excavating equipment being used in Montgomery County, Va., to drill and install the final pieces of Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) provided updates for various issues to the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) at a meeting held in Harrisburg and online. TAB’s mission is to increase transparency and communication about regulating the shale drilling industry in PA. TAB is authorized under the 2012 Oil and Gas Act to advise DEP in the formulation, drafting, and presentation stages of all regulations relating to unconventional oil and gas extraction. Kurt Klapkowski, DEP Deputy for Oil and Gas Management, spoke to the board on several issues. He was asked to comment on the recent fake studies released by University of Pittsburgh that purport to show a link between fracking and certain health conditions (see 
Pennsylvania State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa (
Last November, after months of carping and complaining, the (at that time) three Democrats who serve as commissioners for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) flipped and voted with the two Republican commissioners to approve Commonwealth LNG’s plan to erect a new LNG export plant in Cameron Parish, La. (see 
Quick! Apply pressure to the wound before the patient (in this case, the Marcellus/Utica) bleeds out. Another week, another lost rig in the Marcellus. We can’t seem to stem the flow of rigs leaving. The national rig count also lost one rig overall. For the eighth week in a row and the 17th of the last 18 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. The total is now down to 631 active rigs across both oil and gas (down from 632 last week). At least the loss is slowing. West Virginia dropped one rig after adding one last week. The rig counts for both Pennsylvania and Ohio stayed the same last week.
Three weeks ago, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see