Utica Shale

Private equity (PE) investors still believe in Aubrey McClendon after they more than doubled capital investments this week in the Utica Shale-based enterprise.

Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America LLC (NGPL) is gauging interest in a potential reversal of part of its Gulf Coast mainline system to move natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to markets along the Gulf Coast, launching a 14-day nonbinding open season Tuesday.

After more than a month of delays caused by cold weather, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. reported what analysts called “monster” results at its Stalder 3UH Utica well in Monroe County, OH, which tested at a peak rate of 32.5 MMcf/d.

Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) is holding a nonbinding open season for an expansion of 600 MMcf/d-2.2 Bcf/d from the Marcellus-Utica Shales into New England and Atlantic Canada.

EQT Corp. said Thursday that its operations in the Marcellus Shale once again drove significant growth in its production sales volume but it still is evaluating its Utica liquids venture.

The abundance of market-area gas that has crushed basis differentials and flattened seasonal spreads has bedeviled Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP for several quarters now. But on Monday investors got pinched hard when the partnership cut its distribution by 81% and the price of its units plunged 46%.

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.

An Antero Resources Corp. unit on Friday filed a preliminary prospectus to create a separate partnership to hold substantially all of the Appalachian midstream business.

Consol Energy Inc. added 1.63 Tcfe to its proved reserves through extensions and discoveries in 2013, which the company said on Thursday marks the fifth consecutive year that drillbit finding and development costs were less than 50 cents per Mcfe.