EQT & Equitrans Spat Over Hammerhead Pipeline Goes Public
There’s trouble brewing in EQT-land. Once upon a time, EQT was both a producer (drilling) and midstream (pipeline) company. But then so-called activist investors forced the company (after its merger with Rice Energy) to split in two–drilling and pipelines. The split happened in November 2018 (see It’s Here! EQT Midstream Division Now Split into Standalone Co.). The new pipeline company was eventually renamed Equitrans Midstream. The two companies, EQT and Equitrans, have maintained a close relationship with Equitrans doing the lion’s share of gathering EQT’s production and getting it to market. But now the two sides are squabbling over an Equitrans project called Hammerhead, and that disagreement has gone public with Equitrans issuing a pointed warning via press release.
Read More “EQT & Equitrans Spat Over Hammerhead Pipeline Goes Public”

Encino Acquisition Partners (aka Encino Energy) bought all of Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio assets for $2 billion in 2018 (see
In mid-May the nation’s largest natural gas producer, EQT Corporation, temporarily shut-in (curtailed) roughly one-third of its natural gas production in Pennsylvania and Ohio (see
Pin Oak Midstream, a subsidiary of Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH, has purchased most of the pipeline assets of Laurel Mountain Midstream for an undisclosed amount. The assets include 1,050 miles of natural gas-gathering pipelines and five compressor stations located in three Pennsylvania counties.
S&P Global Market Intelligence has done some forensic analysis of permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania during August 2020. They compared last month’s permit numbers with the numbers from a year ago and found that PA issued 77 new permits last month, down 24% from August 2019.

Back in 2012 Gulfport Energy drilled a pair of exceptional Utica wells in Belmont County, Ohio–both on the same pad. The first was the Shugert 1-1H which had an initial production (IP) rate of 20 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (Mmcf/d). It also produced an initial 144 barrels of condensate per day, and 2,002 barrels of natural gas liquids per day (see
We don’t often see news about a Marcellus producer called Alta Resources. Alta was one of the first drillers we wrote about just after launching the MDN website back in 2009 (see 
Oil and gas drilling giant Equinor (formerly called Statoil) is owned by the Norwegian government. Equinor/Statoil has drilled in the Marcellus/Utica for years. As recently as June 2019 the company reported drilling 9-14 Utica wells per year (see
Range Resources issued its annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR) this morning (full copy below). The report lays out the company’s performance on key issues. It also sets so-called greenhouse gas reduction targets. Of particular note, Range has set a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025. If they do, they would be the first oil and gas company to achieve a net-zero threshold by 2025–less than five years from now.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) in early 2019 when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see
Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against EQT claiming discrimination against the company as a minority-owned company after it canceled a contract worth some $66 million last year. This is an involved story and of course, there are always two sides to every story (and two sides to every lawsuit).
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. Peregrine announced yesterday the company has cut a deal to buy “producing royalties in Doddridge County, West Virginia from several private sellers.” The private sellers are landowners/rights owners with wells drilled by Antero Resources and Jay-Bee Oil & Gas. No details on how much the deal was for.