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Accident Kills Rig Worker on Shell Well Pad in Tioga County, PA

Middlebury Township, Tioga County

This news is a couple of weeks old, but we’ve only just happened across it while researching another story. On the morning of October 27, Marc Jones, an employee of Deep Well Services, was working at a Shell rig site in Tioga County, PA when “a large piece of equipment fell on him, pinning him to the platform 65 feet in the air where he was standing.” The blunt force trauma, hitting him in the head, killed him. We are always saddened to read of such accidents. Here is the one and only story we could locate describing what happened:
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EQT Tries to Gut WV 1982 Minimum Royalty Law for Flat Rate Leases

EQT certainly isn’t following Dale Carnegie’s advice on How to Win Friends and Influence People. Just the opposite, as the company continues to squeeze every last penny it can out of landowners’ pockets who hold old “flat rate” leases in West Virginia. We’ve reported on EQT’s efforts to overturn WV’s Senate Bill (SB) 360, passed earlier this year and signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice (see EQT Still Fighting WV Minimum Royalty Law for Flat Rate Leases). That law disallows post-production deductions for flat rate leases, ensuring landowners receive a minimum 12.5% royalty. In April, EQT sued to overturn the original law, from 1982, on which SB 360 rests–the law that guarantees a 12.5% royalty. Get rid of the original law, and the later law (disallowing deductions) disappears too.
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EQT Pays $394K for Acid Mine Leak in Mon River Following HDD Work

On January 29, 2017, EQT used underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to drill a hole under State Route 136 in Allegheny County, PA, to install a water pipeline. As they were drilling, using what we now know was an out-of-date map, EQT hit an abandoned coal mine full of water, and four million gallons of acid mine drainage (AMD) leaked into the Monongahela River. EQT worked hard and fast to stop the leak (stopping it two days later) and set up a system to prevent any further leaks. Now, nearly two years later, it’s time to pay the piper. EQT just agreed to a fine of $294,000 for violating the Clean Streams Law, and payment of an additional $100,000 to the Clean Streams Foundation to provide for maintenance, operation, and replacement of a system to keep AMD from leaking at the site in the future.
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EQT Stock Falls 46% in One Day, but Investors Didn’t Lose 46%

Click for larger version

Normally if a company’s stock falls upward of 50% in a single day, it indicates a catastrophe has happened. Bad news of biblical proportions. But such is not the case with EQT, the country’s largest natural gas producing company. EQT’s stock closed at $34.64 per share on Monday. By the end of Tuesday, it was $18.56, down 46.4%. Why? Because the company split in two, with EQT Corporation retaining all of the drilling assets, and a new company, Equitrans Midstream Corp., taking off with all of the midstream (pipeline) assets.
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EIA Nov ’18 Drilling Report: Shale Gas Output Up 1 Bcf/d – Again!

We’re speechless–and that doesn’t happen often. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) monthly “Drilling Productivity Report” (DPR) said that in October the country’s seven major shale plays would produce an amazing, all-time high of 73 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas production (see EIA Sep ’18 Drilling Report: Shale Output Flies Past 73 Bcf/d). Last month, EIA said that in November shale gas output would rise a dramatic 1 Bcf/d to 74 Bcf/d (see EIA Oct ’18 Drilling Report: Shale Gas Output Up Another 1 Bcf/d). And now, it’s happened again! EIA issued the the latest DPR yesterday and said that in December, shale gas output will go up ANOTHER 1 Bcf/d, to 75 Bcf/d.
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GE Begins Divesting from Baker Hughes Early

Less than one year after buying Baker Hughes (in July 2017), GE decided in June of this year it didn’t want its bright shiny new toy any more and would, over the next 2-3 years, divest itself of Baker Hughes (see GE Dumping Baker Hughes in Bid to Boost Stock Price). We figured GE would look for a new buyer and sell the whole thing all at once. But that’s not how it works in the world of high finance. GE owns 62.5% of all Baker Hughes stock (BH is, on paper, a separate company). Instead of waiting 2-3 years, GE is moving ahead now, beginning to sell some of its BH stock. Ever so gradually (don’t want to flood the market all at once). The plan, being called “mutually beneficial for both companies” by GE CEO Larry Culp, will draw down GE’s ownership to just over 50%, with an eye to completing the breakup sometime in late 2019.
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Natural Gas with Zero Emissions? This Will Give Antis Heartburn

Natural gas-fired electric generating plants are a big deal. They burn far more efficiently, and pollute way less, than either coal or oil plants. Yet anti-fossil fuelers still hate them because, well, they burn a fossil fuel. And that means they put carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air. And ya know, CO2 is going to make Mom Earth fry “someday.” Whatever. But what if you could capture all of the CO2 and use it/channel it somewhere else, so it didn’t escape into the air? And what if you could ensure that no methane (CH4) escaped either? What if you had a truly zero-emissions natural gas-fired electric generating plant? Such a thing IS possible, and three investors, including Exelon (Fortune 100 electric generating company) is betting on this new technology as the future of electric generation. The question is, will antis shed their prejudice and embrace this new technology?
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Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Nov 14, 2018

The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Paid to protest: Lifting the curtain on Keep Wayne Wild, LLC; McCormick: WV should pitch energy jobs to veterans; Prometheus, Summit open Lebanon, Missouri LNG facility; Massachusetts lawmakers schedule 2 hearings natural gas disaster issues; Natural gas: The $4 dam is breaking for the bears; How much could coal generation stem gas price upside in a cold winter?; And just like that, everybody stopped talking about $100 oil; Oil plunges over 8% as Trump faces off with Saudi Arabia, Russia over production; Structure of fossil-fuel source rocks is finally decoded; IEA says gas to overtake coal in energy mix by 2030; New global emissions rules boost LNG as shipping fuel; First U.S. LNG cargo since 10 percent tariff enacted arrives in China.
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