Jefferson County, OH the New Darling for Utica Drillers
Early in the development of Ohio’s Utica Shale, drillers like Aubrey McClendon (Chesapeake Energy at the time) targeted Ohio counties like Carroll and Columbiana, in the “northern” part of the Utica play. It didn’t take long for drillers to figure out the “core” of the play where the most oil and gas can be found is in the south, in counties like Harrison, Belmont, Monroe, Noble and Guernsey. Jefferson County sort of straddles both the northern and southern parts of the Utica and was left out. Not any more.
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In the end, it was the right thing to do. Word has leaked out and is now being trumpeted by anti-pipeline “news” outlets (like PBS’ StateImpact Pennsylvania) that Sunoco (i.e. Energy Transfer) has purchased the homes of two homeowners who live near Mariner East 2 pipeline construction–both homes located near sinkholes related to pipeline construction. Sunoco paid each homeowner $60,000-$100,000 more than fair market value.
THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, along with a couple of radicals from Lancaster County flying under the name Lancaster Against Pipelines (the Clatterbucks), hoped they could convince the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case that a series of lower courts dismissed–a case that would shut down the now-operating Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (see 
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw (Republican from Lycoming County), who serves as Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Committee, 
Last week we brought you the news that President Trump is considering a waiver to the 1920 Jones Act for LNG to be shipped from port to port in the U.S., even if the ships used are foreign flagged (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Correcting the record about the severance tax; New York State bans offshore oil and gas drilling; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Anadarko’s weak performance in U.S. Permian made it a takeover target; Natural gas prices down to zero at Waha Hub; NATIONAL: Increased natural gas production, interregional flows mitigate withdrawals from storage during winter 2018-19; SEC freezes assets over suspected insider trading in Anadarko; INTERNATIONAL: Panama Canal expansion allows more transits of propane and other hydrocarbon gas liquids; WorleyParsons changes name after £2.4bn acquisition of Jacobs ECR.
Fair or not, anything and everything that happens at EQT right now, which is under extreme pressure by the Rice brothers and several other large shareholders (see 
The money-making Marcellus machine known as Cabot Oil & Gas continues to crank out the hits. On Friday Cabot held a conference call to discuss the company’s first quarter 2019 performance. And wow! What a performance! The company made $308 million in net income/profit (up 141% from $128 million in 1Q18), and produced 2.3 billion cubic feet per day equivalent (Bcfe/d) of mostly Marcellus (little bit of Haynesville) gas, up 21% from 1Q18.
Southwestern Energy, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus with 480,000 acres under lease, turned in their first quarter 2019 update last week. It was the company’s first update since becoming a pure play operator, totally focused on the Marcellus/Utica region. What did it show? Net income nearly tripled to $594 million (vs. 1Q18’s $205 million). Production averaged 2.0 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), close to what the prolific Cabot produced in 1Q19.
The anti-drilling zealots that populate the levers of power in New Jersey, along with their colluding Big Green compatriots, continue a holy mission to block PennEast Pipeline, a pipeline the majority of which will get built in Pennsylvania. Anti-pipeline nutters are attacking the project on several fronts, including in the courts, and by claiming the pipeline would affect nine “potential” historic sites along its path through NJ. Will federal courts and regulators fall for the ruse?
An interesting development in the bidding war to buy Anadarko Petroleum. Two weeks ago Chevron announced a deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum for $33 billion plus assuming outstanding debt, a deal worth $50 billion (see 
Two days ago EQT issued its first quarter 2019 update. Yesterday they held a conference call to discuss the company’s performance. EQT performed better in 1Q19 both financially and operationally than it did in 1Q18. What most caught our interest were CEO Rob McNally’s remarks, both his prepared remarks at the beginning of the conference call, and his unscripted remarks during the Q&A. We gained some important insights on where and how much EQT plans to drill for the balance of 2019.