Gulfport

After a nearly three-month nationwide search for a new CEO, Gulfport Energy Corp. on Wednesday named in-house candidate Michael G. Moore to fill the position after an interim period of success since he took over the role from James Palm, who retired in February.

Gulfport Energy Corp. announced a series of moves on Thursday aimed at tightening its balance sheet, improving sales, growing oil and gas revenues and adding to its growing reserves in Ohio’s Utica Shale play.

Gulfport Energy Corp. continues to bolster its acreage position in the Utica Shale of southeast Ohio, inking a deal last week that will find it paying $478,500 in signing bonuses and 20% of production royalties to a small village along the Ohio River.

Despite a tremendous gain in its annual production last year, Gulfport Energy Corp. said it came in at the low end of its guidance when the company announced its 2013 exit rate on Monday.

Oklahoma City-based Gulfport Energy Corp. has added three members to its Ohio management team, bolstering oversight of one of the company’s largest operating assets, the Utica Shale.

Gulfport Energy Corp. added a monster well from the dry gas window of the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio to its pen during 3Q2013, a quarter that also saw the company post a substantial increase in total net production, again largely thanks to the Utica.

One week after revising its estimate for third quarter production, Gulfport Energy Corp. announced Tuesday that it has placed three wells targeting the Utica Shale in Ohio into production by connecting them to sales pipelines.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) plans to unveil a map that outlines economically viable areas of the state’s portion of the Utica/Point Pleasant Shale by late September, which could provide oil and natural gas operators with a valuable tool to use for future exploration.