Shale Gas News – May 18, 2019

Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

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The Shale Gas News, heard every Saturday at 10 AM on 94.3 FM, 1510 AM and Sundays on YesFM, talked about Cabot Oil & Gas, jobs, Pin Oak Energy and much more last week.

The Shale Gas News has grown again; welcome Gem 104 as our FOURTH station! Gem 104 helps to solidify the Shale Gas News coverage in an important Marcellus region, PA’s northern tier. The Shale Gas News is now broadcasting in Bradford, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga and Wayne Counties, as well as in greater central PA. The Shale Gas News is aired on Saturday or Sunday depending on the station.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week, as guests, we had Shealynn Shave, Executive Director and Deb Tierney, Educational Coordinator, Administrative Systems Leader from the Norther Tier Industry & Education Consortium (NTIEC).

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the May 18th show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation celebrating 10 years. Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation is celebrating ten years in the Susquehanna County.  Aside from drilling for natural gas, the business has pumped billions back into the area where it does business. “We’re blessed to have the people who are always supportive or our efforts,” said Cabot’s CEO Dan Dinges at a luncheon Thursday. In the last ten years the natural gas company has spent $10 billion in the community. Plus, another $2 billion in royalties to property owners. Cabot has invested half a million dollars into the Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center, SCCTC.
• Montage Resources Drilling 33% of 2019 Wells in Ohio Marcellus! The former Blue Ridge Mountain Resources (formerly Magnum Hunter Resources) and Eclipse Resources tied the knot and merged at the end of February, promptly renaming itself Montage Resources. The newly merged entity released its first quarter 2019 update last week. We found some fascinating details about Montage’s plans for 2019. As our headline teases, Montage indicates in their latest slide deck the company will drill one-third of all its new wells in 2019 in what they call their “Marcellus North” area.
• Pin Oak Buys Protege Energy’s Utica Assets in Ohio, W.V. Listen up landowners in Washington County, OH: For some of you, your shale lease may now be owned by someone else. Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH, has purchased all of Protégé Energy’s Utica Shale leases (and other assets) located in Washington and Noble counties in Ohio, and Wood County in West Virginia. The vast majority of the lease transfers are in Washington County.
• Cabot O&G Having a Tough Time Filling Open Jobs in NEPA. Several members of the Marcellus Shale industry spoke at a meeting of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce yesterday, including MDN friend George Stark from Cabot Oil & Gas. George is director of external affairs. At the meeting he said the Marcellus industry has made tremendous strides in the last 10 years and will be around for decades to come. He said, “It’s booming in our area.” George also said Cabot is having trouble filling vacant jobs.  Cabot drills almost exclusively in Marcellus Shale of Susquehanna County, PA. They have a few wells just across the border in Wyoming County too.
• EdgeMarc Energy Files for Bankruptcy, Blames Revolution Pipe. EdgeMarc Energy, headquartered in Canonsburg, PA (with 45,000 acres of Marcellus/Utica leases), is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, looking to sell all of the company’s assets. The reason? They can’t move their production to market because their main pipeline partner, Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline, exploded last September and ET has not been able to get the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection to allow them to restart it. It’s a sad situation. EdgeMarc, with operations in Butler County, PA, and Monroe and Washington counties in OH, will auction off everything.
• Rice Boys Respond to Scorching Letter from EQT Board. Another day, another episode of the ongoing soap opera that is the power struggle to retain (or take over) control of the country’s largest natural gas producer: EQT. Yesterday we told you about current CEO Rob McNally’s bold and gutsy move in adopting a “universal proxy” and about going on offense with a scorching letter written to Toby Rice. Following EQT’s letter, Toby and brother Derek Rice issued a rebuttal letter of their own.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation