M-U Production May Decline with Wellhead Freezeoffs, Plunging Temps
Analysts at S&P Global Platts say that with the current cold snap underway in the northeast, already decreasing natural gas production from the Marcellus/Utica may accelerate with wellhead freeze-offs. Sometimes in colder temps (hey, it was 2 degrees at MDN HQ this morning) water and other liquids in the gas can freeze and block the flow of gas, called a wellhead freeze-off.
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Aubrey McClendon, the co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and the guy most responsible for discovering and commercializing the Ohio Utica Shale, once famously said the Utica “is the best thing to hit the state of Ohio economically since maybe the plow.” And indeed it has been. The Utica is often overshadowed by its larger and more productive cousin the Marcellus Shale. According to Mike Chadsey from the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, the Utica has never really gotten the level of attention and respect it deserves.
In January MDN told you that after five loooong years, a federal judge in Scranton, PA had finally ruled the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit will go to trial this year (see 
The West Virginia Office of Oil and Gas (part of the Dept. of Environmental Protection) reports there are some 60,000 active and 15,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the state. Staffers at Oil and Gas respond to complaints and do the inspection for all those wells. Currently, there are just 14 field staffers with three moving to other positions leaving just 11 staffers who are in the field to monitor all those wells.
On Friday, representatives of a “dark money” political action committee called Generation Now signed a guilty plea admitting their part in the biggest bribery scandal to ever hit Ohio. Generation Now was set up as a social welfare nonprofit but in reality was a shell organization that received “tens of millions of dollars” from FirstEnergy as part of a $61 million bribery scandal to pass and keep passed House Bill (HB) 6 which funnels over $1 billion from Ohio ratepayers to FirstEnergy in order to keep the company’s unprofitable nuclear power plants running.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Hindering natural gas development could hurt the economic recovery from COVID-19; Newly formed GO-West Virginia organization prepares for legislative session, Biden administration; NATIONAL: EIA’s liquids pipeline database shows infrastructure changes and project statuses; Amazon orders hundreds of trucks that run on natural gas; Frigid weather blasting into propane country – markets brace for supply disruptions; Biden’s ‘green energy jobs’ really means ‘no energy jobs’ and ‘low-paying energy jobs’; John Kerry took private jet to Iceland for environmental award; INTERNATIONAL: A gas-based economy is what India needs today: PM Narendra Modi; The outlook for LNG as a marine fuel.
We don’t write much about Alta Resources, a shale drilling company co-founded by the inventor of shale fracking, George Mitchell. But that doesn’t mean Alta doesn’t drill in the Marcellus. The company owns some 547,000 gross (239,000 net) acres producing natural gas from approximately 900 wells in the Marcellus Shale across Bradford, Wyoming, Sullivan, Lycoming, Clinton, and Centre counties in northeast Pennsylvania. Alta is shopping all of their considerable Marcellus assets, looking for a buyer.
Early last week MDN shared the great news that Enbridge’s Weymouth, Mass. compressor station finally, after years of government delays in building it, went online (see 
Earlier this week MDN brought you the big news that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the PennEast Pipeline vs. New Jersey eminent domain case (see 
On Joe Biden’s first day in occupying the White House, he signed an Executive Order (EO) suspending new oil and gas leasing while the Interior Department reviews existing leases and permitting practices for 60 days. The aim is to make the federal lease ban permanent. However, some permits on existing leases will continue to be issued during the 60-day review period. You may think Biden’s federal lease ban does not affect the Marcellus/Utica region. You would be wrong.
Over the past week, the Enverus U.S. rig count jumped up by another 14 active rigs, making the new count 456. That’s the highest the rig count has been since April 2020 when the count began to drop like a rock as the coronavirus pandemic began to bite deeply. While the dry gas Marcellus lost one rig, the wet gas Marcellus gained one rig and the Ohio Utica also gained one rig, for a net +1 gain to 43 active rigs in the M-U combined region.
Northern Oil and Gas, Inc., a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced yesterday it has purchased 64,000 net acres producing ~120 MMcfe/d (million cubic feet equivalent per day) in the Marcellus/Utica from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). The cash purchase price is $250 million.
Doug Lawler, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, has swung his ax once again and is firing (i.e. laying off) another 220 employees–just as the company exits from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Most of the layoffs are happening in Chessy’s headquarters located in Oklahoma City.
Mansfield Energy Corp, with products and services that span fuels, natural gas, diesel exhaust fluid, data management, and price risk management tools, announced it is buying out and merging in eServices Energy Management, a natural gas marketing, logistics, and trading organization headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia with a presence in Pittsburgh, PA and Houston, Texas. According to Mansfield, the deal expands the company’s reach to Marcellus and Utica shale producers.