History

Established in 2005, MDS Energy Development, LLC's sister company, MDS Energy, Ltd., is an established Western Pennsylvania natural gas producer. We are a Kittanning based company with strong roots in the local community, and we prefer to drill close to home to help stimulate our local economy.

A subsidiary of MDS Associated Companies, we operate jointly with our sister company, First Class Energy. First Class Energy is a drilling, pipelining, and construction company consisting mainly of our nine drill rigs, two service rigs, one coil tubing unit, over 50 dozers and excavators. We are very proud to say that in this troubled economy we currently employ over 90 local employees and are constantly expanding.

We have over 10,000 acres in Armstrong, Clarion, Jefferson, Indiana, and Butler counties currently under lease and have plans to increase our drill schedule exponentially over the next several years. We have the capability to drill both traditional shallow gas plays as well as the Marcellus Shale.

Many of the companies that have signed leases in your area have found themselves underfunded, overloaded, or put off by the erratic rises and falls in energy prices, and have chosen to slow down or halt entirely their production and exploratory drilling, leaving many landowners frustrated and confused.

In addition, many companies are offering signing bonuses and abnormally high delayed rental payments; however the companies have recently been forfeiting their offers as they have found themselves unable to "Pay-Up" due to the present state of the economy. At MDS Energy, this is not the case. Being an established local company with significant operational resources, we have the drilling flexibility, low overhead and strong local roots needed to execute our development plans going forward in western Pennsylvania. We are owned locally, employ locally, and drill locally.

If you are interested in seeing if we can help you, please contact our land department today.

In 2008, First Class Energy acquired Howard Drilling, a competitor and recently in January 2012 acquired Phillips Drilling Company, to further boost its infrastructure and market share. Unlike many companies, we have the flexibility of drilling where we want, when we want, rather than having to rely on a subcontractor to do our drilling, pipelining, and construction work. This flexibility makes us an ideal company to lease with.