EQT CEO: Shut-Ins Worth $200M a Year; Record Output Coming in 2026
When Appalachian gas prices fall into the basement, EQT turns down the valves, and CEO Toby Rice says the strategy is paying off. In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Rice put a dollar figure on it for the first time: a little over $200 million a year in benefit from selling less gas when prices are low and more when they’re high. He also said EQT, the country’s No. 2 gas producer, will pump more gas in 2026 than last year while spending less to do it. Rice talked up the company’s proposed POWER Pipeline to Ohio, its Mountain Valley Pipeline expansions, and a new 10-year LNG supply deal with Lithuania. His outlook for global gas demand is, let’s say, very bullish. Read More “EQT CEO: Shut-Ins Worth $200M a Year; Record Output Coming in 2026”
An activist hedge fund that has been quietly leaning on Devon Energy since June has now put its demands in writing, and it’s asking for a lot more. Toms Capital Management sent Devon a letter earlier this month urging the company to explore “strategic alternatives, including a sale.” In other words, sell the whole company, not just a few pieces. Toms says it’s now one of Devon’s five largest shareholders. Why do we care here in Appalachia? When Devon swallowed Coterra Energy in May, it got the old Cabot Oil & Gas Marcellus position in Susquehanna County along with it. If Devon itself gets sold, the future of that NEPA gas acreage (and the royalty checks it generates) is up for grabs. 
Shovels, meet dirt. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) yesterday gave Iroquois Gas Transmission System the green light to begin construction on its Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project — well, most of it. FERC signed off on new compression and gas cooling equipment at Iroquois’ Athens and Dover compressor stations in New York and its Milford station in Connecticut. The fourth site, in Brookfield, Connecticut, is still stuck in state air permit purgatory. But three out of four ain’t bad. It means real work can finally start on pushing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England, two of the most gas-starved (and highest-priced) energy markets in the country. 
The Trump administration has formally sided with a pipeline company in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could change how much money landowners get when a pipeline takes their land by eminent domain. On Sept. 21, the U.S. Solicitor General filed a brief backing WBI Energy Transmission in Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission (No. 25-159). The feds want to argue alongside WBI when the case is heard on Nov. 9. The case began in North Dakota’s Bakken, but the ruling will reach all shale plays, including Pennsylvania, where landowners currently enjoy more generous rules. 
A power company from Thailand just bought a big chunk of a natural gas-fired power plant sitting in Queens, New York — about two miles from LaGuardia Airport. Why should you care? Because the reason that plant is worth so much money is the very thing New York politicians keep telling us is a dead end. The Empire State has spent a decade banning fracking, killing pipelines, and lecturing the rest of us about the evils of methane. And yet: the single most valuable thing about Astoria Energy II is that nobody will ever be allowed to build another one like it. Scarcity, it turns out, pays very well. Somebody in Bangkok did the math. 
New York’s so-called leaders banned natural gas hookups in new homes (see 
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