CNX CEO Nick DeIuliis Takes Aim at Joe Biden in National Column
It’s an awesome thing to see the CEO of a major shale natural gas company stand up to the insanity that is the Democrat Party in the U.S. today. It’s gutsy. Business leaders often have strong political opinions, but they almost never share them out of fear for their own jobs–afraid of offending pimple-faced hedge fund investors who dot the financial landscape today. Not CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis. He’s fearless and we wish we had a hundred more like him! Nick, who is mild-mannered and does not like the spotlight, is stepping up to push back against those who would ban fracking–including presidential candidate Joe Biden. Nick recently published a national column in The Hill, a must-read inside the swamp of Washington, DC., calling out Biden for his horrible positions on fracking and oil/gas energy.
Read More “CNX CEO Nick DeIuliis Takes Aim at Joe Biden in National Column”
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says CNX Resources failed to prevent soil erosion at seven of the company’s well pad sites in Washington and Greene counties in 2017/2018. The failure, says DEP, resulted in the release of soil and sediment, including a few cases of sediment-laden water being released into nearby streams. CNX corrected the violations and has struck a deal with DEP regarding compensation. Instead of paying a fine to the DEP, CNX will pay $180,000 to restore a trout stream in a Washington County park.
Many states in the northeast and in Appalachia are now in lock-down mode with most businesses shuttered to prevent the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus. However, certain activities and businesses continue to operate. They are called “life-sustaining” or “critical” or “essential.” On the list of essential businesses in both Pennsylvania and Ohio are shale drillers. Although drillers continue to work, at least one Marcellus/Utica driller, CNX Resources (we suspect others) is making changes to keep its employees and contractors protected against the virus.
A number of Marcellus/Utica drillers and pipeline companies are taking action to slow and potentially stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Several companies (so far) have instituted mandatory work-from-home orders. Those companies include the Pittsburgh-based companies CNX Resources, Equitrans, and EQT Corp. By the time this is published more may have joined the list.
Nick DeIuliis, CEO of CNX Resources, has about had it up to “here” with the haters. At a recent speech to the Pittsburgh Rotary Club and the Pittsburgh Business Exchange, DeIuliis unloaded on extremists (whom he called “haters”) targeting the shale and petrochemical industries. He made a strong case for fossil fuel energy. He’s also not a fan of the “carbon-shaming mob mentality” of some leftist fund managers who are pressuring investment firms to divest from fossil fuel companies. Way to go Nick!
The value of a company’s stock price is important, for a variety of reasons. The stock price reflects investor confidence in whether the company can earn its keep and grow profits in the future. A higher stock price wards off takeovers. Upper management gets a raise. And the company can borrow money when it needs to at reasonable interest rates. All sorts of reasons why the stock price is important. Unfortunately for top drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, their stock prices have tanked. As a group, and individually, the stock price is either near or even at the lowest it’s *ever been.* Let that sink in.
Nearly two weeks ago CNX Resources issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2019 update (see 
CNX Resources reports losing $271 million in the fourth quarter of 2019–but it wasn’t an actual money-out-of-pocket loss. The company wrote down the value of its Marcellus Shale assets (called an impairment). The company took a $327 million impairment charge for its Marcellus assets in PA, and a $119 impairment charge for unproved gas properties in the Marcellus. Below we have details on how many Marcellus wells CNX drilled and completed in 4Q and for the full year, and what company’s top brass says about what’s ahead for CNX in 2020 and beyond.
For months MDN has brought you bits and pieces of news from individual drillers, detailing plans to cut back on spending for new drilling in the Marcellus/Utica in 2020. It’s not just happening in the M-U–it’s happening across the country. The experts at RBN Energy have a terrific new post that pulls information about major drillers scaling back into one place. They analyze spending by three different groups of drillers: oil-focused, diversified, and gas-focused drillers. In the third category, all but one of the gas-focused drillers have major operations in the M-U. The stats are sobering. As a collective group, M-U gas drillers have pledged to cut their 2020 budgets 25% from the already-lower spending that happened this year. Ouch.
Left-wingers opposed to fossil fuels have apparently infiltrated the non-profit Allegheny Conference on Community Development (Pittsburgh region), and Marcellus/Utica driller CNX Resources, one of the Conference’s corporate members, is quitting because of it. It’s about time our industry stops supporting leftist causes that seek to end the use of fossil fuels.
Speaking of electric fracking, this past summer CNX Resources converted to using 100% electric frac fleets in its drilling operations (see 