Catching Up Ohio’s Utica New Well Shale Permits Reports
We suppose we should have known. In querying the same Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) database we’ve been querying for years (maintained by ODNR), beginning about two months ago we noticed no new permits had been issued for new Utica Shale wells in the state. A week or two here and there is not all that unusual given the downward trend in drilling new wells. But the trend went on for two months. We were suspicious. A couple of sharp MDN readers emailed to say that ODNR is producing regular reports of new Utica well permits at a different location. Doh! We wish the ODNR had posted some sort of notice about the change in not continuing to update their other database. At any rate, we’ve gone back to early July to harvest and present all of the missing Ohio new weekly permit reports below…
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Archaea Energy completes merger, poised to begin as publicly traded company; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Los Angeles County votes to phase out oil and gas drilling; NATIONAL: Oil surged higher Wednesday; Chevron and Enterprise exploring carbon storage ops; Pipeline integrity programs a ‘growing business’ for CNG/LNG providers; How long can U.S. shale producers resist the oil price rally?; U.S. gas production set for big increase in 2022; INTERNATIONAL: Natural gas looks to remain key component as companies, nations lower emissions.
Spire STL is a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. The pipeline began flowing gas in late 2019 (see 
In May MDN told you about one of the oddest combinations in recent memory–the merger of Permian driller Cimarex Energy with Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas (see 
Once again we’re talking about the price of natural gas–both the NYMEX futures price and the physical spot price. Yesterday the NYMEX hit a new post-pandemic high of $5.26/MMBtu. The NGI national average for spot prices (physical gas traded at hundreds of trading hubs across the country) rose to $5.35/MMBtu. The spot price in the Marcellus/Utica in both the northeastern and southwestern portions of the play also rose to new highs and is (gasp) coming close to the levels we saw during February and Winter Storm Uri. Again we ask the question: How long will prices stay this high (or even go higher)? We have some insight on that question below.
Ever hear of a “market enhancement” royalty clause? If you’re a Pennsylvania landowner, or perhaps a landowner in Ohio and West Virginia, you likely have. Even if you (as a landowner) have a lease that disallows post-production deductions from your royalty check, many leases have market enhancement clauses that allow the driller to deduct certain expenses if they can process the gas and sell it to a distant customer for more money than they can get locally. A higher price for the gas theoretically means you the landowner get a bigger royalty check, right? Not so fast…
Although Germany and Europe are far behind the U.S. in many ways, they are ahead of us in one way: LNG by rail. Three European LNG (liquefied natural gas) companies combined to successfully test an LNG delivery by railcar to a German power plant in Bavaria owned by utility company Uniper. The LNG was shipped some 500 miles (800 kilometers) without any problems. The specialized tank cars, if widely adopted in Europe, will no doubt make their way across the planet, including here in the U.S. LNG by rail is an important alternative to pipelines, especially in the U.S.
In April, on the last day of the West Virginia legislative session for 2021, the West Virginia Senate unanimously passed House Bill (HB) 2581 which changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see 
The Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) is a far-left, hyper-partisan, nonprofit organization that supports liberal Democrat causes. ORVI conducted a very slanted push poll in May asking Pennsylvania residents a plethora of questions about energy. The ultimate purpose was to smear fracking and drilling for natural gas. We spotted a media story hyping some of the results of the poll stating that a “Majority of Pa. residents want fracking to end.” Far-left organization, slanted poll. What’s new, right? Except when we began to dig into the questions and answers of this slanted poll, we discovered that headline is not truthful, leaving out the real news that a majority of PA residents still support fracking.
We are fast approaching the must-attend event of the year for the Marcellus/Utica: