Ascent Res. 3Q: Drilled 19 Wells, Produced 1.98 Bcfe/d, Lost $1.3B
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company issued its third quarter 2021 update yesterday. The company produced 1.98 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) during 3Q–nearly all of it, 1.83 MMcf/d–was natural gas, the rest was oil and NGLs. Ascent generated $28 million of free cash flow, but like other M-U drillers, hedging bets on derivatives resulted in a huge loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter.
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In April of this year, Northeast Natural Energy (NNE), a West Virginia driller, announced it had enrolled itself in both the Equitable Origin and MiQ certification programs to prove the natural gas it produces is “responsibly sourced gas” (see 
The current futures contract for NYMEX natural gas priced at the Henry Hub trading location, called the “front month” (of December), was down for the third trading day in a row yesterday. The December contract fell 45 cents (8.26%) to $4.98 per MMBtu–the first time it has slipped under $5 since October 21. Where might the price be heading next?
In August 2020 when Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, issued its annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR), the company laid out a goal of achieving so-called net-zero carbon emissions by 2025 (see 
Piedmont Natural Gas, which is owned by Duke Energy, plans to build a small, 12-mile natural gas pipeline in northern Greenville County, SC. The company has about 90,000 customers in Greenville County right now and expects to add about 44,000 more over the next 20 years. Piedmont tends to run short on natural gas supplies now on the coldest days during winter. The pipeline will help meet demand now and in the future. Piedmont has just announced the route the pipeline will take, which is parallel to State Route 290, minimizing disturbance to the environment. Yet environmentalist wackos are opposed due to an irrational hatred of fossil fuels.
Three weeks ago the total number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica was 22. Two weeks ago it fell to 9. Last week the numbers picked up somewhat, with 16 new permits issued, breaking down as: 12 permits issued in Pennsylvania, 2 permits issued in Ohio, and 2 permits issued in West Virginia.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: U.S. Senate candidate Arkoosh calls for end to fracking in Pennsylvania; NATIONAL: EIA report sends crude higher; U.S. energy services sector adds 17,000-plus jobs; Zero-emission natural gas power plants are coming to US; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC says to Biden, if you want more oil, pump it yourself.
We’ve seen the name a few times over the years, but Abarta Energy (aka Abarta Oil & Gas Co.) has not appeared on our radar often. The privately-owned company is based in Pittsburgh and owns (did own) assets, including wells and pipeline systems, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. On Sunday Abarta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting liabilities of $25.4 million and assets of $4.2 million. Abarta says it wants to liquidate/sell all of its remaining oil and gas assets.
What do you think of this one? The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is launching a “favorites” list for Marcellus drilling and pipeline companies. You can earn yourself onto the list to get special treatment if you go to the extraordinary (and very expensive) lengths to do things the DEP wants you to do–things *not* required under current law, like “plugging abandoned oil wells, powering equipment with renewable energy, improving water quality in historically polluted streams and planting trees to offset greenhouse gas emissions.” Your reward for landing on the attaboy list? Your application for building a well pad or pipeline corridor will move to the top of the stack for review, leapfrogging those in line for a standard review. In other words, you’ll get the treatment the law guarantees (14 days for an erosion permit review) instead of the months and months of delays (in violation of the law) you get now. What a deal.
This morning Diversified Energy announced it is expanding methane emissions detection at the company’s operations in the Appalachian Basin by deploying an extra 500 handheld detection devices (in addition to 100 already in use) at its work sites. Diversified owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells (with over 400 Marcellus/Utica shale wells). Diversified’s strategy is to seek wells in “the long tail.” That is, wells already drilled with production far along the decline curve. Most of the wells in their inventory are older conventional wells. However, as shale wells begin to age and produce less, Diversified is also buying into the shale market.
ECA Marcellus Trust I, traded over-the-counter on the pink sheets, canceled distributions (dividends) to investors for the first three quarters of 2020 due to the pandemic and the crash in oil and gas prices. The company restarted paying dividends in 4Q20–a grand total of 9/10ths of one penny per unit (see 
We have some exciting, and exclusive, news to share with the MDN audience. We previously told you that the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) was behaving like a child, dragging its collective heels to prevent two side-by-side injection wells in Belmont County developed by Omni Energy from beginning operation (see