West Virginia House Bill (HB) 4292 attempts to close a loophole affecting landowners and mineral rights owners with a conventional oil or gas well. Royalties from conventional O&G wells are typically small, as little as $40-$50 per month. Some energy companies (hopefully very few) that own the wells are intentionally late with royalty payments or…
This is brilliant and something EVERYONE needs to pay attention to. Closely. The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” WV Senate Bill (SB) 358 was introduced…
Last summer, MDN told you that the new system to assess valuations of shale wells in West Virginia had turned into a mess (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). That mess has just gotten messier — what we call a hot mess. A “clerical error” by a third-party vendor…
In March 2023, the West Virginia legislature passed House Bill 3110, giving the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) extra funds to hire more oil and gas well inspectors. At that time, the state had just ten inspectors to oversee not only all of the state’s 75,000 documented/known wells but also the state’s estimated 15,000…
West Virginia continues to lag behind both Pennsylvania and Ohio with respect to building combined cycle natural gas-fired power plants. PA and OH have a combined 39 such power plants. WV has zero. In March 2023, West Virginia Senate Bill (SB) 188, aimed at making WV’s gas-fired power generation more competitive with its neighbors in…
Antero Resources is one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (with major assets in West Virginia). As good and careful as companies like Antero are when hiring, sometimes there’s a rotten apple found in the barrel. Such was the case with a former employee who headed up the company’s operations in WV — where…
The Baker Hughes rig count lost ground again last week, as it has in four of the last five weeks. The count went from 621 active rigs two weeks ago to 619 last week. The Marcellus/Utica count was steady at 40 active rigs; however, the mix changed. Pennsylvania kept 19 active rigs as in previous…
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, located in Houston, TX, is a national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector, representing more than 650,000 U.S. jobs in the technology-driven energy value chain. The Energy Workforce Council works to advance member policy priorities and empower the energy workforce of the future. The Council…
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, is nearly done, thanks to our recent warm weather. What’s left to do? Less than one mile of “upland” pipe to install, less than 50 water/wetland crossings, and just one more compression station to finish. According to Equitrans, the…
Diversified Energy Company, with major assets in the Appalachian region (including the Marcellus/Utica), announced yesterday the company had sold a majority stake in an unspecified number of Appalachian conventional oil and gas wells to an investment company called DP Lion Equity Holdco, for $200 million. We could not find who owns DP Lion. The company…
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project will be completed and go online sometime in the first quarter of 2024 (see Equitrans Admits the Obvious – MVP Won’t be Online Until 2024). In September of this year, MVP filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to amend its original certificate (that established…
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, based in Houston, TX, is the national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector. The Council reports jobs in the O&G sector increased in November, adding 1,286 jobs. The O&G industry employs 652,398 jobs across the country, just 54,130 jobs away from returning to pre-pandemic levels….
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count hit a new low for 2023 five weeks ago (see U.S. Rig Count Hits New 2023 Low – Loses 2 @ 616, M-U Even @ 40). Since then, the count has steadily added at least one rig each week and now stands at 626 active rigs as of Friday….
Greylock Energy is headquartered in Charleston, WV, with offices in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wyoming and operations scattered throughout Appalachia and the Rockies. The company’s assets comprise more than 1.19 million acres, about 6,700 wells, including the operation of 4,000 wells throughout Appalachia (shale and conventional) and 2,600 miles of pipeline. Ryan Deaderick, executive…
The dead cat bounce bounced a little higher last week (i.e., the slight bounce a dead cat makes when it hits the ground). The rig count hit a new low for 2023 three weeks ago (see U.S. Rig Count Hits New 2023 Low – Loses 2 @ 616, M-U Even @ 40). Two weeks ago,…