Newly released information gathered from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shows that as Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) tested its 303-mile pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, some 130 potential problem areas were located. Running a PIG (pipeline inspection gauge) device through the pipeline to check for dents and other weaknesses…
Read More...Anti-fossil fuelers and some residents with portions of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) traversing their land are flooding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with comments asking the agency to delay permission for MVP to be placed into service. The latest in-service date MVP outlined to FERC in a recent request for startup permission…
Read More...Yeah, the bottom pretty much fell out of the rig count last week, both nationally and for the Marcellus/Utica region. We’re hitting new lows with both counts. For the M-U, Pennsylvania stayed the same with 21 active rigs, but Ohio lost one rig, and West Virginia lost two rigs last week, for a net loss…
Read More...Antero Midstream, a separate company from Antero Resources (at least on paper, although it is managed by the same people), issued a press release yesterday to announce it had purchased a bolt-on acquisition of gathering and compression assets in the Marcellus Shale for $70 million from Summit Midstream Partners. The assets acquired include two compressor…
Read More...In February, West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore sent notices to six financial institutions warning them of potential inclusion on the state’s Restricted Financial Institution List (can’t do business with the state) after his office made an initial determination that the institutions appear to be engaged in boycotts of fossil fuel companies as defined under…
Read More...Hopefully, we’re now at the conclusion of an effort to overturn a bill passed in early 2022 by the West Virginia legislature, Senate Bill (SB) 694, which finally brought forced pooling for shale wells to the Mountain State after eight years of trying (see WV House Passes Forced Pooling Bill, Done Deal When Gov Signs)….
Read More...According to the data geeks at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. natural gas production grew by 4% in 2023, which was similar to the growth in 2022. U.S. gas production in 2023 averaged a whopping 125.0 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). In 2023, more natural gas was produced in the Appalachia (Marcellus/Utica)…
Read More...West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore has sent notices to six additional financial institutions warning them of potential inclusion on the state’s Restricted Financial Institution List (can’t do business with the state) after his office made an initial determination that the institutions appear to be engaged in boycotts of fossil fuel companies as defined under…
Read More...Members of the Wet Virginia State Senate voted on Friday to permanently retain a flawed oil and gas well valuation formula. The Senate vote comes after the House had previously voted to do the same thing (see WV’s Botched NatGas Property Tax Gets Messier with House Vote). The formula used has been the cause of unending…
Read More...According to Reuters, oilfield service companies and drillers have put the brakes on hiring and “further job cuts could loom” as natural gas producers respond to sliding prices by slashing spending on new wells to reduce excess production. We told you yesterday that Chesapeake Energy announced a coming rig and frac crew cut in the…
Read More...Two really big (huge) pieces of news are coming from yesterday’s Equitrans Midstream fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update. The first bit of news is that Equitrans is actively considering a buyout offer. The company doesn’t use that exact language, but that’s what’s happening. This should come as no surprise, given the rumor mill on…
Read More...Last summer, MDN told you that a new system to assess valuations of shale wells in West Virginia had turned into a royal mess (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). In January, that mess got a whole lot messier — what we call a hot mess — when a…
Read More...Antero Resources, which is 100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica with over 500,000 net acres under lease (and the largest M-U driller in West Virginia), issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update yesterday. The company reports net production averaged 3.4 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) during 4Q23, an increase of 6% year-over-year. Production…
Read More...Earlier this week, MDN reported on a bill making its way through West Virginia’s legislative sausage-making process (see WV Bill Triples Conventional Well Royalty Payments if Made Late). WV House Bill (HB) 4292 attempts to close a loophole affecting landowners and mineral rights owners with a conventional oil or gas well, some of whom suffer…
Read More...The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an excellent article reporting on an effort by Tenaska, one of the largest privately operated companies in the U.S., to build a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) hub spanning tens of thousands of acres in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Landmen are “knocking on doors again” in all three states, looking…
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