Gulfport’s 4-Mile Utica Wells Producing 2.5+ Bcfe per 1,000 Ft

Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 with a new board and top management. In January of this year, the company appointed a new CEO, John Reinhart, the former President and CEO of M-U driller Montage Resources Corporation before that…

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Diversified Picks Up Pace Plugging Old Wells – 174 So Far in 2023

Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. The company…

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Range Resources’ Ongoing Love Affair with Washington County, PA

Quick history lesson. In 2004, Range Resources was the first company to drill and frack the first Marcellus Shale gas well, which happened in Mt. Pleasant Township (Washington County), PA. It was love at first sight. Over the past almost 20 years, Range has added a few other counties to the list of place where…

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Antero Donates $4 Million to WVU’s Engineering & Petroleum Program

Antero Resources and Antero Midstream have donated a massive $4 million to West Virginia University’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources to help train the next generation of petroleum and natural gas engineers. Antero’s gift is the largest philanthropic donation to the school to date. It will support undergraduate and graduate students…

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With Carbon Credits Scam Exposed, Big Names (Like Shell) Exit Market

Last Friday, MDN told you about a new Cambridge University study published in the journal Science exposing the sale of carbon credits as a scam (see Cambridge Study Finds Carbon Offsets Using Trees is a Scam). Now that the carbon credit scam has been exposed, big companies like Shell, Nestle, and Gucci are exiting the…

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16 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 21 – 27

New shale permits issued for Aug 21 – 27 in the Marcellus/Utica decreased once again. Up down, up down, up down. That’s what it feels like. There were 16 new permits issued last week, down nearly half from the 27 issued the prior week. Last week’s permit tally included 11 new permits in Pennsylvania, 5…

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Range Res. Gets Permit for 5th Well Pad in Frazer, Near West Deer

Funny how a couple of miles can make all the difference. In West Deer, a township in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh), Olympus Energy faces organized opposition to every project it proposes. Some Olympus well pads get approved, and some don’t. Every Olympus pad is vigorously opposed by anti-fossil fuelers. Yet in the township immediately…

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Uncontrolled Release of Gas at Repsol Well in Bradford County, PA

A Repsol well located on a pad in Troy (Bradford County), PA, experienced uncontrolled natural gas venting. The situation began around 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27. It continued to vent “sporadically” until about 2:30 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 28. Repsol called the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to report the situation at 2:02 a.m….

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Epsilon Energy Reports New Drilling on Acreage in PA Marcellus

Is there now a truce in the long-running dispute between Epsilon Energy and Chesapeake Energy over drilling new wells in Susquehanna County, PA? Perhaps! Yesterday, Epsilon, a small publicly-traded energy company that joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, with the other company doing the drilling, announced that “the operator…

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Olympus Applies to Build Compressor Stn at West Deer Well Pad Site

Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Olympus owns a pipeline subsidiary called Hyperion Midstream that builds gathering lines to the company’s wells. Hyperion applied to build a compressor station on a recently approved Olympus well pad in rural West Deer Township (Allegheny County). The…

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27 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 14 – 20

New shale permits issued for Aug 14 – 20 in the Marcellus/Utica finally turned around. There were 27 new permits issued last week, way up from the 10 issued the prior week. Last week’s permit tally included 21 new permits in Pennsylvania, 2 new permits in Ohio, and 4 new permits in West Virginia (after…

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Judge Rules WV Lawsuit Against SWN for ‘Well Bashing’ Continues

Two Marshall County, WV landowners with the same last name (obviously related) sued Southwestern Energy (SWN), accusing the company of “well bashing,” in March of this year (see WV Mineral Owners’ Lawsuit Accuses Southwestern of ‘Well Bashing’). The landowners seek to have the lawsuit certified as a class action. Well bashing happens when drilling a…

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Encino Energy, Vendors Donate $80,000 to Four Ohio Charities

Encino Energy and its vendors made major donations stemming from Encino Energy’s Vendor Charity Classic, a two-day event including a clay shoot, golf outing, and welcome reception. Last year, Encino created the event to thank its vendors and contractors who choose to work with the company, crediting its partners as being the reason for its…

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EQT Finally Completes Acquisition of Tug Hill and XcL Midstream

Nearly one year after EQT announced a deal to buy privately-owned Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for roughly $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: EQT Buys Tug Hill’s THQ Appalachia for $5.2 Billion), the deal is finally done. EQT announced yesterday it had closed on the purchase (revised price ~$4.6 billion), adding roughly 90,000 acres…

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Possible Frac-Out Near EQT Pad in Greene County…One Year Later

One year ago, in July 2022, MDN brought you news of a possible frac-out, or “inadvertent return” that happens when drilling mud pops out of places where it’s not supposed to–places outside the borehole being drilled (see Possible Frac-Out Reported at EQT Well Site in Greene County, PA). A landowner who lives near a well…

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