EQT Sues Union Township (Washington County, PA) for Extortion
Here’s an explosive allegation. EQT Corporation and its pipeline subsidiary EQM Gathering are suing Union Township (located in Washington County, PA). Also named in the lawsuit are the town’s five supervisors. EQT’s allegation is that the town (and its supervisors) are attempting to extort big money from EQT to allow the company to connect gathering pipelines to several of its recently-drilled shale wells. Among the claims, the town wants $50,000 to issue a permit for ANY gathering pipeline that connects to a well. The town also (says EQT in the lawsuit) tried to extort $750,000 to repair a road slip caused by another company. Oh! And Union wants a $50,000 monthly “fee” from EQT to continue operating in the township. Read More “EQT Sues Union Township (Washington County, PA) for Extortion”
For the week of Feb 10 – 16, the number of permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica to drill new shale wells soared. Two weeks ago, 24 new permits were issued. Last week, the number increased to 36 new permits issued. The Keystone State (PA) issued the vast majority with 23 new permits last week. Seven permits went to PennEnergy Resources, all on a single pad in Armstrong County. Snyder Brothers received five permits for a single pad, also in Armstrong County (meaning half the PA permits went to Armstrong). Range Resources was third in line with four new permits for a single pad in Washington County. 
EQT Corporation, the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer after Expand Energy, delivered its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 update yesterday. The company, which drills solely in the Marcellus/Utica, produced 605 Bcfe of natural gas and equivalents during 4Q, which works out to be 6.58 Bcfe/d, despite curtailing 27 Bcfe (or 0.29 Bcfe/d, the same as 290 MMcf/d). Aside from the stats of what happened in 4Q24 and for the full year, much of the chatter in the update was about what is coming in 2025. EQT’s top brass said it is deep in discussions with multiple data centers and will likely have a few signed deals to provide gas to data center power plants by the end of 2025. 
DUCs are drilled but uncompleted wells. Drillers sink a hole first and then return later to “complete” the well by fracking it and connecting it to sales. An increase in DUCs means more new drilling is happening. A decrease in DUCs means fewer new wells are drilled while previously drilled wells are completed. According to a report by Enverus, some drillers have entered 2025 with substantially fewer DUCs than last year, creating potential effects on capital efficiency and production. Nearly every shale play, including the Marcellus/Utica, has seen DUCs fall. In some cases, by the hundreds. 
Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, issued a summary of the fourth quarter and full-year 2024 upstream M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity yesterday. Two of the top five M&A deals include deals in the Marcellus/Utica. Coming in at #3 on the list was EQT’s sale of non-operated assets to Equinor for $1.25 billion in October (see 
Did you happen to catch the news lighting up all the cable news stations yesterday about Chinese startup DeepSeek? The company launched a free AI assistant that it claims uses less data at a fraction of the cost of other AI models. By Monday, the DeepSeek assistant had overtaken U.S. rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store. The news sent traders into a tailspin of selling off tech company stocks like Nvidia (which makes the chips used in AI). The news also affected natural gas drillers negatively. Why? 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the January 25 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC gave his approval to or renewed 18 general water use permits in December for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Lycoming, Susquehanna, and Tioga counties. 
The experts at RBN Energy recently analyzed the Q3 2024 financial results for the gas-focused producers the company tracks (mainly Marcellus/Utica producers). The gas-weighted E&Ps RBN follows had the best total shareholder return performance of the three peer groups they tracked through the first nine months of 2024, with a median gain of 14%. On the high side, CNX Resources’ share price was amazing, up more than 60% for the first nine months of last year. On the other end, Coterra Energy’s share price lost value.