Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

The Shale Gas News, heard every Saturday at 10 AM on 94.3 FM and 1510 AM, talked about severance tax, offshore drilling, Southwest Energy and much more last week.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week, as guests, we had Brittany Thomas Ramos, coordinator of external affairs, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. and Pete Butler, President of Northern Tier Industry and Education Consortium (NTIEC).

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the May 6th show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• Officials argue for gas severance tax at hearing. WILKES-BARRE — With Pennsylvania sitting on the third largest pocket of Marcellus Shale natural gas in the world, the state is poised to become an energy exporting giant and should have a severance tax in place when the boom begins, state officials argued Monday during a public hearing.
• Environmental groups sue over national forest drilling. The Ohio Environmental Council (OEC) and three other environmental groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over plans to allow oil-and-gas fracking on the Wayne National Forest.
• Environmental groups sue Trump administration over offshore drilling. A coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its efforts to expand offshore drilling, arguing the move violates the president’s legal authority, threatens a multitude of wildlife and could harm the fishing and tourism industries.
• Southwestern Energy – Pedal to the Metal in the Marcellus/Utica. Earlier this week MDN brought you the latest quarterly update from Southwestern Energy. As we noted, production was down, but profits up. Southwestern is investing 85% of their budget in the Marcellus/Utica this year. In covering the Southwestern story, we neglected to bring you a portion of the earnings call where Jack Bergeron talks. Bergeron is Southwestern Senior Vice President for E&P Operations.
• CONSOL Energy 1Q17 – Posts Loss, Selling Everything in Sight. Yesterday CONSOL Energy, one of the larger drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, released its first quarter 2017 update. The company reports losing $34 million in 1Q17. Production was down too–but just slightly at less than 2% less than 1Q16.
• Noble Energy Sells Remaining M-U Assets for $1.2B – Who Bought? Yesterday Noble Energy dropped a bombshell that it has sold its 100% interest in 385,000 Marcellus/Utica acres and wells producing 415 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas in West Virginia and Pennsylvania for $1.225 billion to “an undisclosed buyer.” That works out to be $3,181 per acre..

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