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Reunited: EQT Closes on Deal to Buy Equitrans Midstream for $5.4B
In November 2018, under intense pressure from activist investors, EQT split itself into two companies: EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream (see It’s Here! EQT Midstream Division Now Split into Standalone Co.). Equitrans became a new, completely separate company with its own board of directors and its own set of investors. Five-and-a-half years later (in March of this year), EQT dropped the bombshell announcement that it had cut a deal to buy back Equitrans in an all-stock deal worth $5.4 billion (see Stop Press! EQT Buying Equitrans Midstream in All-Stock Deal). The deal is now done. The two companies were reunited and became a single company yesterday.
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Austin Master Services (AMS) is a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio. The Ohio Attorney General lodged charges against AMS in March, accusing the company of storing 16+ times more drill cuttings at the facility than it’s rated for (see 
This is BIG (and really great) news… Williams has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to bring the final pieces of the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project online by the end of this month. REAE expands the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. About 450,000 MMcf/d of the total capacity went online in late 2023 along Transco’s Leidy Line in Pennsylvania (see 
Yesterday, the Biden-Harris Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced selected recipients of over $4.3 billion in so-called Climate Pollution Reduction Grants from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) aimed at “community-driven solutions that tackle the climate crisis, reduce air pollution, advance environmental justice, and accelerate America’s clean energy transition.” In other words, it’s bribe money going to the Democrats’ favored donors and to states where they need votes this November. Handing out $4.3 billion will buy a LOT of votes. One of the big winners, unsurprisingly, is the swing state of Pennsylvania and its Democrat Governor, Josh Shapiro, who received $329 million (7.7% of the entire total).
Finally, there is some good news regarding Freeport LNG restarting. Reuters reports that an LNG carrier left one of Freeport LNG’s berths over the weekend, carrying the facility’s first cargo since July 5. The report also says another carrier was filling up yesterday, and two more vessels were waiting near the port. However, the facility is still running at only about one-third of its rated capacity (one of three trains).
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average monthly wholesale spot (not futures, but spot) natural gas price at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub fell by 20% to $2.56 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) between January and June of this year. In January, the Henry Hub price averaged $3.18/MMBtu, then dropped to $1.49/MMBtu in March, marking the lowest average monthly inflation-adjusted price since at least 1997. In addition, prices from February through April 2024 were the lowest ever recorded for those months.
Joe Manchin, U.S. Senator from West Virginia, can’t be gone soon enough for us. He sold out the country and his constituents when he voted for Biden’s Green New Deal, conveniently renamed the Inflation Reduction Act (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: McCormick: Casey is endorsing Kamala Harris’ anti-fracking agenda; NATIONAL: Heritage Foundation tells Rigzone oil demand will never peak; VP Harris has adopted some extreme anti-energy positions over the years; Oil and gas leaders know—Kamala Harris is not a laughing matter; Trump vows to boost U.S. oil production if elected president; INTERNATIONAL: Cash dries up for locals fighting climate change; Shovels in the ground on natural gas pipeline expansion.