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EQT CEO Says M-U Could Alleviate Europe’s Gas Situation, Except…
EQT CEO Toby Rice laid the blame for the developing world energy crisis, particularly Europe’s lack of access to natural gas, at the feet of radical environmentalists. If not for the radicals and their constant frivolous lawsuits blocking pipelines and LNG export facilities, such infrastructure would already have been built and would be providing abundant, cheap, clean-burning Marcellus/Utica natural gas to other regions of the U.S. and to Europe.
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Last week Pennsylvania was back on its game, issuing 22 permits to drill new shale wells. Most of the permits in PA were for three well pads by three different operators: Seneca Resources, Repsol, and EQT. Ohio issued just two new permits to Gulfport Energy for the same well pad in Belmont County. West Virginia issued four new permits, three of them to Southwest Energy and one to Antero Resources.
Last week MDN was (as far as we can tell) the first to bring you news of a new lawsuit filed in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas against EQT alleging the company had not made required royalty payments to at least two residents, and likely many more residents (see 
Yet another entrant in what is becoming a crowded field of programs aimed at reducing methane leaks from natural gas systems. A coalition of major U.S. natural gas operators, including Devon Energy, EQT, Sempra, Southern Company, and Williams, have signed on to something called the Veritas project, created by research firm GTI. How will Veritas reduce methane emissions and how is it different from Project Canary and other similar programs?
A healthy number of permits were issued to drill new shale wells across the Marcellus/Utica region last week. Pennsylvania issued 19 new permits in both southwest and northeast PA. Ohio issued 8 new permits, all of them to a single driller (Ascent Resources) for two well pads in two different counties. West Virginia issued 9 new permits–all but 2 of them were issued to Antero Resources in Tyler County.
In early 2019, EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (and in the Marcellus/Utica) settled a class action lawsuit in West Virginia with landowners and rights owners ending EQT’s practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks (see 
We’ve noticed nearly all of the public companies (and many private companies) in the oil and gas space are talking about their ESG (environmental, social, governance) programs. There’s a lot of hot air surrounding ESG programs. How does one separate out fact from fiction? Enverus, the company that produces (in our opinion) the best and most accurate weekly rig count numbers, has a solution. Enverus has developed a new framework/system to compare one oil/gas company’s ESG efforts against its competitors. Of the top 10 best ESG programs in the oil and gas industry are four companies (drillers) in the Marcellus/Utica. Coming in at the #1 position is none other than the largest natural gas driller in the country: EQT.
Each quarter NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) runs the numbers and publishes a list of the 25 top natural gas marketers in the U.S. These are not necessarily the top 25 producers of natural gas (although in some cases they are), but the top 25 sellers (vendors, jobbers) of natural gas. NGI’s latest quarterly report shows overall the biggest sellers of natgas lost ground once again in 2Q21, which continues a 2+ year trend of year over year declines in the amount of gas sold.
Although the price of natural gas has rocketed this year and cash flows for Marcellus/Utica drillers have ballooned, showering drillers with plenty of free cash flow, M-U drillers are spending less (19% less) on capital expenditures than they did in 2020. Production in the M-U is up slightly by 4% so far in 2021 vs. 2020. The experts at RBN Energy have dived into this latest twist in the shale story to help explain what’s going on and why.
Because of the soaring price of natural gas (see our companion post today), and because gas drillers have shown remarkable restraint and a real effort to scale back capital spending in an effort to generate free cash flow, investors have taken note and like what they’ve seen. The share price in most pure-play shale gas producers (mainly those in the M-U) posted double-digit gains in value over the past month.