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…
Read More...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…
Read More...There were 20 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, versus 27 permits issued during the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 12 new permits last week. Ohio issued 6 new permits. West Virginia issued 2 new permits last week. We had a tie for the company…
Read More...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…
Read More...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…
Read More...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…
Read More...There were 23 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Jan. 8-14, versus 18 permits issued for the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits last week. Ohio issued just 2 new permits. West Virginia issued 8 new permits — for the second week in a row. EQT scored the…
Read More...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…
Read More...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…
Read More...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…
Read More...There were 18 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the first full week of 2024 (Jan. 1-7), versus 24 permits issued for the final two weeks of last year (Dec. 18-31). Pennsylvania issued 9 new permits last week. Ohio issued just 1 — which was to drill a Marcellus (not a Utica)…
Read More...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…
Read More...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…
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