Facts & Rumors # 644
June 13, 2026
Marcellus, Utica, Permian and Eagle Ford Plays
“More Tanks Empty Talk! Oil executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse. The Washington Post. Oil and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge in coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled American consumers. Industry officials say they are doing everything they can to sound an alarm that prices are about to soar as the commercial and government inventories that have mitigated price rises so far are rapidly depleting, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration.
Utica Shale Investments Increased by $2.9b in First Half of 2025. The Business Journal. A new study published by Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Public Affairs and Education shows Ohio’s shale-energy sector attracted approximately $2.9 billion in direct investment between January and June 2025, pushing cumulative investment since 2011 to nearly $117.5 billion. The Shale Investment Dashboard, published twice a year and commissioned by JobsOhio, captures direct spending across the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the industry in Ohio’s Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation.
Environmentalists Will Not Prevail in Mountain Valley Expansion. Judges cast doubt on fight against Mountain Valley pipeline expansion. E&E News. A federal appeals court is not convinced environmental groups are likely to prevail in their legal fight over key permits for the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline expansion project. On Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion outlining its rationale for declining to stop construction on the Mountain Valley Southgate extension earlier this spring. The stay would have prevented work on the project until the court decided whether Virginia and North Carolina regulators properly certified that the project complied with state water quality standards.
PA’s Shale Impact Fee Benefits Every Corner of the State. Marcellus Drilling News. Stephanie Catarino Wissman, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute Pennsylvania, argues in a recent op-ed that Pennsylvania’s Act 13 natural gas impact fee has successfully paired shale development with local investment since 2012. Unlike a severance tax, the fee directs revenue to counties, municipalities, and environmental programs, generating nearly $3 billion overall and more than $1 billion from 2020 to 2024. Funds have supported roads, bridges, stormwater systems, emergency services, parks, watershed restoration, abandoned mine reclamation, orphan well plugging, and tax relief.
STEO Forecasts for NatGas Up. Thanks, MDN. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) on Tuesday. Using the official EIA dartboard, the STEO is the agency’s monthly best estimate of where energy prices and production will go over the next 12 months. There was a revision to the agency’s prediction about the spot price (at the Henry Hub) for natural gas in 2026 and 2027. Last month, the EIA predicted 2026 would end up with an average HH price of $3.50/MMBtu and 2027 would see an average of $3.18/MMBtu. On Tuesday, the EIA revised both numbers up. The agency sees an average price of $3.60 this year, up a dime from last month, and $3.46 in 2027, up a robust 28 cents.
TX Gas Drillers Shut Out of Oil Price Rally Turn to Shutting Off Wells. Bloomberg. Two extremes are currently playing out in the Permian Basin. Drillers are reaping the benefits of a historic price rally due to the Iran war. But when it comes to natural gas, they’re having to pay customers to take it away. It’s now been 124 days of negative gas prices at the Waha Hub, a key indicator for Permian gas prices, and some producers have thrown in the towel, shutting in some wells to limit their losses. Their number includes large Permian operators such as Permian Resources Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., both of which have shut wells with high gas-to-oil ratios
TX RRC Reveals Latest Oil, Gas Output Figures. Rigzone. The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) revealed its latest preliminary crude oil and natural gas production figures, which were for March this year, in a statement posted on its website recently. The preliminary reported total volume of crude oil in Texas in March 2026 was 132.08 million barrels, according to the statement, which showed that the preliminary reported total volume of natural gas in the state during the same month was 1.08 trillion cubic feet.
FERC Fast Tracks 20 PJM Gas-Fired Plants. Thanks, MDN. In February 2025, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a plan by PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest electric grid (which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV). Then, last October, PJM proposed an even faster fast-track plan to add up to 10 new power generation sources per year for the next two years. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved that plan on Tuesday.
Oil Drilling Rises in Longest U.S. Streak Since 2022 on Price Bump. Fortune. US oil drilling has expanded for six straight weeks, the longest uptrend in almost four years, after the Iran war pushed crude prices higher. The number of rigs drilling across US oil fields rose by two this week to 431, according to data released by Baker Hughes Co. on Friday. The last such streak for domestic exploration was in mid-2022, when energy demand began to recover from pandemic-era lockdowns.
Emergency Oil Reserve at Lowest Level Since Reagan. America’s emergency oil reserve is about to hit its lowest level since Reagan was in office. Fortune. The nation’s emergency reserve for oil and fuel supplies is slipping below Biden-era lows to its most exhausted level since the Reagan era—when the nearly 50-year-old U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve was still being filled up. The SPR will hit its lowest volumes since 1983 any day now—if not already—and continue sinking lower as the Trump Administration leans on its reserves to keep oil exports flowing to the rest of the world—and to stop domestic prices from further skyrocketing.
OH Sees Almost $117.5 Billion in O&G Investment Since 2011. Thanks, MDN. JobsOhio, a private, nonprofit corporation that works on behalf of the state to drive job creation and new capital investment in Ohio by attracting business, contracts its economic research to Cleveland State University (CSU) to monitor the Utica Shale industry. JobsOhio released the latest CSU twice-a-year report yesterday (full copy below). It shows that Ohio’s shale energy sector drew another $2.9 billion in direct investment between January and June 2025, pushing cumulative investment in the Utica since 2011 to nearly $117.5 billion. All private money! It’s massive.
Trump slams NY Gov on Constitution Pipeline Deal. Trump slams Hochul on pipeline ‘deal’. Politico. President Donald Trump accused New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday of reneging on a pipelines-for-wind deal reportedly reached last year so that work on an offshore wind project could resume. “We’re getting held up by the governor of New York,” Trump said about the Constitution pipeline after Monday’s NBA finals game. “She made a deal with us to allow us to build it and she’s holding it up, and Connecticut is suffering and all of New England is suffering, and upstate New York is really suffering.”
DUCs Report. US oil and gas producers’ production “shock absorbers” last month continued to dwindle, with the nationwide number of drilled but uncompleted wells sinking to the lowest total on record going back to 2013.
In its just-released Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the US Energy Information
Administration reported 4,952 land-based DUCs were in place. That figure was down roughly 20 wells from a month earlier after 15 consecutive months of decline in DUC counts as wells were completed.
Operators in 2025 had turned to DUCs to lower costs as oil prices tanked in the $65 per barrel range. Analysts, using a general rule of thumb, say drilling and completing a well can cost between $8 million and $10 million, while completing a DUC cost between $5 million and $6 million.
The high point for drilled but uncompleted wells was roughly 8,900 wells in mid-2020.
Looking specifically at four of the country’s most productive plays, their numbers reflect the overall drawdown of DUCs reported nationwide. Appalachia (including the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays), the Bakken and the Permian Basin all experienced triple-digit drops last month from one year earlier,
STEO reported.
The quartet’s lone exception was the Eagle Ford, where the number of DUCs year-over-year actually rose by more than 11%. Added together, the number of DUCs in place last month for the four plays fell to 2,089, a 536-well, 20.4%, decrease. As has been the case for months, the biggest year-over-year drop was in the play featuring the
most DUCs.
The Permian saw its drilled but uncompleted well total drop by 350, nearly 31%,according to STEO data. From April to May of this year, the well total was down five. The year-over-year Permian plunge was to the lowest total in more than five years,
STEO records show.
The Bakken saw a 123-well, 34.3% drop in the year-over-year DUC total, falling to 236 from 359. Last month’s total was off 17 wells from April 2026.
The 236-well total was the lowest in more than a half-decade. From April to May of this year, the play’s drilled but uncompleted wells total fell by 17, or 6.7%.
Appalachia saw a year-over-year decline in DUCs of 102, or 12.9%, to 686 from 788. Last month’s figure was the lowest since May 2023, when Appalachia’s DUCs total was 612. April 2025’s total was six wells higher, STEO found.
The Eagle Ford play continues to grow its DUCs crop, last month adding 39 wells, an 11.3% increase, from May 2025’s 345 total. Last month’s figure was up four wells from a month earlier.
PA June 1, to June 11, 2026
County Township E&P Companies
1. Westmoreland Washington EQT
2. Wyoming Forkston Expand
3. Wyoming Forkston Expand
4. Wyoming Forkston Expand
5. Wyoming Forkston Expand
6. Wyoming Forkston Expand
OH June 1 to June 6, 2026
County Township E&P Companies
1. No New Permits
WV May 11, to May 29, 2026
1. Doddridge Vickery Energy
