Coterra 3Q: “Not Hungry” to Buy More Assets in Marcellus
Coterra Energy, the new name for the two merged companies that were Cabot Oil & Gas and Cimarex Energy (a Permian driller), issued its third quarter update yesterday. Cabot has been and remains one of our favorite Marcellus/Utica drillers. According to Tom Jorden, CEO of Cimarex and now CEO of the combined company, the integration of the two companies is “well underway” and has been “a full court press” since May. In the aggregate, Coterra brought 61 wells online during 3Q and plans to operate seven rigs and four completion crews during 4Q. Five of the rigs are in the Delaware Basin (in the Texas Permian), and two of the rigs are in Susquehanna County in northeast Pennsylvania. What about details for Marcellus operations during 3Q?
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Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May with a new board and new top management. The company issued its third quarter update yesterday. Unfortunately, the company got hosed on hedges, losing $622 million during 3Q21 on hedges which resulted in an overall loss of $463 million for the quarter. The company produced 973 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) during 3Q21, down slightly from an average 992 MMcf/d a year ago. That production is across both shale plays where Gulfport drills: the Ohio Utica and Oklahoma SCOOP.
It is obvious MDN is out of step with the industry it supports and promotes. We think the federal EPA’s announcement on Tuesday that it will draft and adopt new emissions regulations aimed at reducing methane (i.e. natural gas) emissions is clearly unconstitutional (see 
It is alarming and shocking how leftist ideology has infected the financial industry worldwide. Banks and asset managers representing 40% ($130 TRILLION) of the world’s financial assets have pledged to meet the goals set out in the Paris climate agreement. More than 450 firms, holding nearly half of the money that gets invested, now belong to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. Their aim? To defund all fossil fuel energy. We’re kind of speechless.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Maine voters reject $950 million power line for hydro imports; INTERNATIONAL: China made mistake skipping G-20 and COP26 summits, Biden says; Russia looks to capitalize on the global energy crisis; Brazil tops importers of US LNG cargoes in October as Spanish deliveries climb.
We suppose it takes a lot to surprise the CEO of one of the world’s biggest pipeline companies. Yet yesterday Williams CEO Alan Armstrong expressed his surprise that even with the dramatic increase in the price of natural gas during the third quarter, demand for natural gas was “inelastic” and remained high. Translation: Williams had all it could do to keep up with flowing natural gas through it’s extensive pipeline system, even with super-high prices. Much of the demand to flow gas came from the Marcellus/Utica.
Equitrans Midstream, formerly known as EQT Midstream, issued its third quarter update yesterday. The main focus (for us) of the update is new or updated information related to the company’s all-important Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project and those projects connected to MVP–including Hammerhead and Southgate. Yesterday we learned Equitrans still believes MVP, a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia, is on track to start up in “summer 2022.” The company plans to begin construction of a related extension of MVP, called Southgate (from Virginia into North Carolina) in 2022 and bring it online in early 2023.
American Petroleum Institute (API) president and CEO, Mike Sommers, recently testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform to discuss the natural gas and oil industry’s priorities and API’s ludicrous support for so-called pricing carbon (i.e. a huge carbon tax), support for regulating methane (into oblivion), all while still trying to reliably produce American energy. Those priorities are irreconcilably impossible, but, whatever. The thing that really irked us was that Sommers obsequiously genuflected to the global warming gods during the hearing.
It was a pretty paltry week for new shale drilling permits in the Marcellus/Utica. Two weeks ago Pennsylvania issued 21 permits to drill new shale wells. They must have shot their wad because last week PA issued just two new permits–the lowest number in PA we’ve seen in…we can’t remember how long. Ohio issued no new permits for Utica drilling last week…zero…goose egg. Only West Virginia held out some promise, issuing seven new permits for shale drilling last week.