Poison Pill Worked? Gulfport Big Investor Withdraws Board Picks
As recently as early March Gulfport Energy, a major driller in the Ohio Utica Shale, and its single largest investor, Firefly Value Partners (owns 13.1% of outstanding shares), were sniping at each other. Firefly was actively trying to pack the board of directors with its own nominees (see Gulfport’s Largest Investor Wants to Pack Board, Force Change). Two days ago Firefly announced a ceasefire. They will no longer attempt to get their own candidates elected to the board at the upcoming annual meeting. What changed?
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In April, Montage Resources shut-in “low margin production” wells in its liquids-rich producing area. The shut-ins primarily impacted Utica condensate production. In early May during the company’s first-quarter update conference call, CEO John Reinhart said the company had begun to restart some of the shut-in or “curtailed” production (see 
On Tuesday, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to not even consider hearing a case involving PennEast Pipeline. Grewal wants to deny the project its day in court. In the brief Grewal outright lies by saying “PennEast is wrong” in its claim that a lower court decision, if allowed to stand, would result in pipeline projects across the country getting blocked. That is a 100% lie and Grewal knows it.
Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) Executive Director Steve Tambini is such a disappointment. He has totally caved to the hard-left environmental lobby that has its hooks deeply embedded in the DRBC. On June 1 Tambini sent a letter that’s, well, embarrassing. He sent the letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), telling FERC that the DRBC does have a say in whether or not the PennEast Pipeline can get built–even though not one inch of Phase 1 of the project will traverse DRBC’s jurisdiction.
CNX Resources announced yesterday that it will buy back $400 million (roughly half) of its outstanding notes, debt that’s not due to be redeemed until 2022. They’re buying it back early. The company’s finances continue to get stronger. It was just February when Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings downgraded the credit rating for six of the biggest M-U drillers, including CNX (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA House committee to consider bill prohibiting carbon tax on gas plants; Days of violence also scramble Northeast energy situation; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas storage capacity remained relatively unchanged in 2019; INVEST Act appears to fund Gateway Project but comes down hard on liquefied natural gas transport by rail; SGA goes digital with two conferences; A precarious position for propane markets: reading the signals; INTERNATIONAL: Russia fears American energy dominance — and that’s a good thing; U.S. Senators to announce sanctions bill on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Gulfport Energy, the third-largest (by number wells drilled) producer in the Ohio Utica Shale, issued an update yesterday to its previous plans on drilling in the Ohio Utica (and Oklahoma SCOOP), revising down the amount of natural gas it will produce and revising down drilling activity previously planned for 2020. The company says it will delay until later this year/early next year more of its production than previously announced–due to ongoing low prices for natgas.
SECUR O&G, LLC is headquartered in Sewickley, PA, but its main operation, a Marcellus/Utica waste processing center, is located in the Bens Run Industrial Park in Friendly (Tyler County), WV. SECUR processes both liquid and solid drilling waste and handles TENORM (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material) at its Bens Run facility. Last Friday SECUR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of WV.
There were 7 new permits issued in PA for May 25-29. There were no new permits issued in WV for the same time period. The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) database is still down. MDN contacted ODNR today and was told by a spokesman, “The Division [of Oil and Gas Management] hopes to be able to resume permitting activities this week.” Does that mean no new Utica permits are being issued at this time?
A coalition of so-called environmental groups (leftist, very radical organizations) filed an official request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Saturday calling on FERC to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for a project that’s already been studied to death: Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The once $5.5 billion project (now $8 billion because of delays caused by these nefarious groups) will run from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina.
We spotted an article by ICIS (Independent Commodity Intelligence Services) about ethylene contracts in May increasing in price after a six-month-long decline. How does that potentially impact drillers in the Marcellus/Utica? We’ll tell you…
MDN is updating our Calendar page more frequently to bring you the latest news on events of interest that have either been canceled, postponed, or in some cases, have gone virtual. We encourage you to review the list. A number of free and low-cost webinars and online events have popped up as an alternative to in-person meetings.
PTT Global Chemical, the huge Thailand-based petrochemical company looking to build a world-class ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH, has botched its messaging about when it will make a final investment decision (FID) about moving forward with the project. The latest FID was supposed to be now, by the end of June this year (see 
In April 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline projects (see