The Daily Digger

WEEK ENDING 10/19/19 New permits issued last week:   10  (Previous week:  0 )   +10 Total horizontal permits issued:  3187  (Previous week:  3177 )    +10 Total horizontal wells drilled:  2708  (Previous week:  2708 )   +-0 Total horizontal wells producing:  2340  (Previous week:  2340 )   +-0 Utica rig count:  13  (Previous week:  13 )   +-0

From The Review: The lawsuit concerns leases landowners signed with Ohio Buckeye Energy or Chesapeake Energy from 2010 through 2012. Ohio Buckeye Energy later became part of Chesapeake.  Last October, Encino Acquisition Partners bought Chesapeake’s Utica holdings in Ohio for $2 billion. EAP is a partnership between the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Encino Energy, a private oil and gas company based in Houston.  EAP’s purchase included 900,000 acres and approximately 900 wells, with related equipment and property. Encino Energy’s Utica office is in Louisville.  Royalty dispute After the purchase, the Encino defendants began to significantly underpay royalties to landowners, according to the lawsuit.  William G. Williams, an attorney for the landowners, said his clients initially couldn’t wait for Encino to take over because Chesapeake had been making large deductions from their royalties, a practice that is the subject of another lawsuit.  ...

by Nicole Jacobs & Dan LAlfaro Eight of Ohio’s top Utica Shale development counties collected more than $141.9 million in real estate property taxes on oil and natural gas production since 2010, according to an  updated report  by Energy In Depth and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. The  Utica Shale Local Support Series  report entitled, “ 2019 Update: Ohio’s Oil and Gas Industry Property Tax Payments ,” analyzes the economic impacts of oil and natural gas real estate property ( or ad valorem ) taxes paid in these counties from 2010-2017:  Belmont ,  Carroll ,  Columbiana ,  Guernsey ,  Harrison ,  Jefferson ,  Monroe  and  Noble . Data was collected through Freedom of Information Act requests, and builds on EID and OOGA’s previous 2017 reports on  real estate property taxes  and  road use management agreements . The  Utica Shale Local Support  Series  shows the real dollars b...

From Vorys' Energy & Environmental Law Blog: The Seventh District Court of Appeals reaffirmed that claimants can use both Ohio’s Marketable Title Act (“MTA”) and Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”) to extinguish and abandon, respectively, mineral interests. In West v. Bode, 2019-Ohio-4092, the appellant-surface owners attempted to extinguish a severed oil and gas royalty interest under the MTA. The holders of the royalty interest argued, in part, that the MTA did not extinguish the royalty interest because, as between the MTA and DMA, the DMA is the more specific statute with regard to terminating mineral interests and the DMA did not abandon the royalty interest. The Court rejected the royalty holders’ argument, as it had done in similar, prior cases. However, in its decision, the Court offered its strongest defense of the MTA to date. Read the rest of this post by clicking here. 

From the Oil & Gas Law Report: The Ohio Department of Natural Resources – Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management (DOGRM) recently revised its rules governing spacing of horizontal oil and gas production wells. The new rules, which became effective on Oct. 10, 2019, will bring Ohio’s horizontal well spacing regulations in line with what accepted science and drilling data indicates is a more efficient and productive spacing for horizontal wells in Ohio.  Under the prior version of Ohio Administrative Code §1501:9-1-04, which applied to both conventional and horizontal wells, any oil and gas production well drilled into a pool located at least 4,000 feet in depth must be set back at least 500 feet from the boundary of the leased tract or drilling unit. That prior version of the rule also required a spacing of at least 1,000 feet between wells producing from the same pool.  Effective Oct. 10, 2019, Ohio Administrative Code §1501:9-1-04 was revised to require only...

An Encino Energy press release: Encino Energy made major donations from the Encino Energy Community Partnership Program earlier today supporting environment, health and safety projects in Carroll and Jefferson counties.  In Jefferson County, Encino was asked to provide funding for the Wintersville Fire and Rescue to purchase eight Conex shipping containers. These containers will be used to build a training facility for the Wintersville Fire and Rescue, which will be located adjacent to the burn building and to support hose line operations, search and rescue, roof operations, ladder operations, confined space rescue, rope rescue, sprinkler systems, and foam operations. The training center will be available for use by fire departments from Jefferson, Belmont, and Harrison counties. Encino invested $20,000 from its Community Partnership Program toward this effort.  “These new containers are incredibly important—and Encino Energy was the first to answer our call for action...

WEEK ENDING 10/12/19 New permits issued last week:   0  (Previous week:  19 )   -10 Total horizontal permits issued:  3177  (Previous week:  3177 )    +-0 Total horizontal wells drilled:  2708  (Previous week:  2707 )   +1 Total horizontal wells producing:  2340  (Previous week:  2339 )   +1 Utica rig count:  13  (Previous week:  11 )   +2