Category Archives: Antero Resources

Antero’s Water Treatment Plant in West Virginia

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Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette-Mail put together an excellent article on the wastewater treatment plant that Antero Resources is building on the Doddridge County and Ritchie County line.  He explains the need for the plant, the controversy around the plant, and gets into the regulatory framework that is either being used or abused depending on your point of view.  There are a number of points of view represented.

Basically, the plant takes up a lot of space and has disrupted the lives of the people who live next to it.

For regulatory purposes the plant is supposed to be privately held and used by Antero.  Being private instead of commercial, the plant doesn’t have to go through some regulatory approvals.  Interestingly, Antero will be taking water from other companies and treating it.  Usually that would be commercial, not private.   It looks like Antero is using a loophole to avoid regulations.  People don’t typically like that kind of thing, particularly when their lives are being disrupted by someone who is making a lot of money disrupting their lives.

There’s more in the article.  We won’t ruin it all for you here.

West Virginia Nuisance Lawsuits Against Oil and Gas Companies Sent Back to Mediation

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There are around 200 people who have filed nuisance lawsuits against two oil and gas companies here in West Virginia.  Judge Moats has ordered them back to mediation, telling the parties that fixing the problem is worth more than money.  The parties previously went to mediation.  Perhaps having the judge encourage the parties to settle will help mediation move along a bit.  We think Judge Moats’ words were well chosen.  They could be interpreted to hint that the judge is leaning either way.  Perhaps it’s better to say that neither party can say that the judge is leaning toward their own side.

In related news, we have heard through the grapevine that SB 508, which would have severely limited the ability of landowners to bring nuisance lawsuits against any company operating nearby, has been defeated.  It’s a little too soon to say for sure that’s the case, but the word out of Charleston is that the House Judiciary is unlikely to pass the bill out to the full House.

Antero Resources Land Budget for 2016

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Antero Resources

Antero Resources is arguably the biggest player in West Virginia Marcellus/Utica natural gas development, so when their 2016 guidance report came out it was worth taking a quick look at.  Their overall budget has been reduced from $1.8 billion to $1.4 billion, but of greater interest to people we work with, the land budget is now $100 million.  That’s down from $150 million in 2015 and down from $450 million in 2014.

Why is the land budget interesting?  The land budget is the budget for the land department, and the land department is the department that buys leases, modifications, and renewals.  The land department has $100 million to spend.  While that’s a lot less than it has been in the past, it’s still a substantial number.  We can still expect Antero Resources to buy leases and modifications, and even renew leases that are coming due.  Speaking of which, it will be interesting to see how many of Antero’s leases are coming due this year, and how many of them they will be renewing.

The land budget is not down as much as we thought it might be.  Rumors that Antero was not taking any more leases in Tyler County made us think that perhaps Antero was cutting way, way back on leasing.  While there has definitely been a cut, it seems that Antero has shifted interests to Wetzel County, searching for the Utica dry gas that companies have realized is so prolific.

Also, the sheer number of leases may not be changing all that much.  Along with the cut in budget has come a cut in bonus amounts.  Property that would have commanded $4,000-$5,000 per acre last year is now being offered at $2,500-$3,000 per acre.  That alone makes up a large part of the reduction in their land budget.

So while there is going to be a reduction in the amount of money paid for leases and modifications this year, it seems that the number of leases taken and the number of landmen working is likely to remain the same.  The unknown is just how low the price of natural gas is going to drop.  If it continues to drop throughout the year then we could see additional reductions in activity.  However, if prices remain roughly the same through this year, then activity should remain about the same and might even pick up.  After all, most analysts are saying that the oversupply should be over sometime in 2017.  Antero will be well positioned to pick up any of that slack, and they’ll do so by

 

West Virginia Nuisance Lawsuits Against Oil and Gas Producers

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There seem to be more and more nuisance lawsuits filed in West Virginia these days.  Property owners who are affected by oil and gas development, but who aren’t benefiting from it in any way, are resorting to legal action to protect their property.

The big problem with nuisance lawsuits is that they usually don’t pay for themselves.  You can count on getting a judgment, but that judgment usually won’t even cover the cost of the attorney or law firm you hire.  You can protect your property, but it’s going to cost you.  A lot of surface owners in West Virginia simply don’t have the resources to take on that cost.  Lawyers won’t (usually) work for free.

That hasn’t stopped every West Virginian, though.  This article over at E&E Publishing covers the subject pretty well.  It’s worth a quick read.

 

Antero Resources 2Q15 Production is Huge

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Antero Resources produced awfully close to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas in the second quarter of 2015.  That’s a big number, and an interesting number, too.  Why is it interesting?  Because that’s the same amount of gas that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is expected to be able to transport every day.  You can go take a look at Antero’s Second Quarter Report at this link.

 

Antero’s Plans for 2015

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This article over at Natural Gas Intel includes a lot of useful information about Antero Resources’ plans for the upcoming year.  In short, they plan to scale back production for a while before ramping back up at the end of the year.  They’ll be running 11 rigs and seven completion crews.  They’re going to be holding back completion of 50 wells, waiting for prices to come back up.

This jives well with the sense that we’ve been getting about oil and gas prices and production from fracked wells, and the amount of oil and gas that is currently in storage.  Sometime this summer we’ll probably see a drop off in production from already producing wells.  That drop off in production will be offset by bringing wells that have already been drilled but not completed into production.  As the number of drilled but non-producing wells starts to decline companies will begin to see the need to start drilling more.  This need will come from completed or soon-to-be completed pipelines and energy plants.  We don’t really see that need arising as early as the end of this year, but Antero probably has better research and data available to it than we do, so we’ll trust them.  Look for drilling to pick back up at the end of this year.

EDIT: As of July of 2015 we began to see an uptick in the number of people calling the office with questions about leases.  Surprisingly, they haven’t been from Antero.  We’ve begun hearing from Mountaineer Keystone and EQT.  It seems that in preparation for drilling in 2016, and after having reviewed the first half numbers, some companies have begun taking leases again.