Ohio data for May showed the number of well permits in the Utica Shale continued to be lower year on year, but the number remained in line with the lower levels of activity since January.
The two dozen permits pulled in May compared to 23 permits in April, but they showed a 43% drop from the permits pulled in May 2017, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' May 16 data.
Likely to be Ohio's top gas producer based on volume when the state releases first-quarter production data in the near future, Ascent Resources again pulled the most permits at 14, with 10 of those for wells in the wet gas county of Guernsey where Ascent's regional headquarters are located.
Founded by the late shale pioneer Aubrey McClendon and staffed with several veterans of McClendon-founded Chesapeake Energy Corp., Ascent is backed by private equity funds First Reserve Corp. and the Energy & Minerals Group. Ascent has made few public pronouncements while climbing to the top of the Utica heap. According to first-quarter financial statement posted on its website, Ascent had losses of $42.4 million in the first quarter, compared to $7.9 million in losses in the same period in 2017, while producing 941 MMcf/d of gas. Gulfport Energy, the top gas producer by volume, has just over 1 Bcf/d of production, according to the state's most recent fourth-quarter 2017 data.
Chesapeake Energy pulled three permits for wells in dry gas Jefferson County along the Ohio River, while Gulfport Energy Corp. pulled three permits to drill new wells on what is becoming its home turf, dry gas Belmont County, downriver from Jefferson County. Belmont also saw new permits for Exxon Mobil Corp.'s XTO Energy Inc. shale unit as well as Ascent. According to Ascent's financial statement, it has 990,000 MMBtu/d hedged at $3/MMBtu for the rest of the year and has three major customers accounting for 60% of its $288.7 million in revenues: Tenaska Marketing Ventures, Sequent Energy Management LP and Cheniere Energy Inc.'s Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC.

