Last Remaining Member of “Old” EQT Exec Team Resigns
During the proxy fight earlier this year to control EQT Corporation’s board–and ultimately its management team–Toby Rice threw some sharp barbs including talk that EQT’s existing management was not up to the task of effectively running the company. The Rice boys said so, their board nominees said so, and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said so. There will be change (i.e. personnel change) at the “operational level” said ISS. Imagine our surprise when, after assuming control, Toby said there would *not* be a wholesale replacement of top management (see Toby Rice, EQT’s New CEO, is NOT Cleaning House re Top Management). We guess it depends on what you mean by “top management,” because as of Dec. 15, the last remaining member of the “old” (former) eight-member senior management team at EQT will be gone. Which sure sounds like wholesale replacement to us.
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Diversified Gas & Oil owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Their focus has been to acquire quality production and cash flow–regardless of the well or commodity type (gas or oil). They currently have over 400 shale wells in their portfolio. Diversified has just closed on a deal to raise more money via securitization–meaning to issue securities (“notes”) based on the value of their gas wells. It will raise a reported $200 million for the company. The securitization transaction is being called “groundbreaking.”
Gulfport Energy, one of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica Shale (210,000 acres), concentrates its drilling in the Ohio Utica and the Oklahoma SCOOP plays. A few weeks ago the company announced they are shopping some of their non-operated assets in the Ohio Utica (see 
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT, in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, continues to sue in an effort to block shale drilling in the township. And they keep losing their lawsuits. Protect PT has launched multiple challenges to a local Penn Township ordinance which allows Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley to drill and operate wells.
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.
Montage Resources, which formed in a merger of Eclipse Resources and Blue Ridge Mountain Resources (formerly Magnum Hunter Resources) in March of this year, announced in July they would cut back from two to one active drilling rig in the second half of 2019 (see 
On Feb. 4, 2019, the parent holding company for Marcellus driller Arsenal Resources, Arsenal Energy Holdings LLC, applied for what has to be the fastest “prepackaged bankruptcy” we’ve ever heard of. They sailed through the whole process in 10 days flat (see 
Washington (PA) Observer-Reporter reporter Rick Schrum recently went on a tour of fracking operations at a Range Resources site in Allegheny County, PA. Schrum interviewed Range’s water operations manager about how and where Range gets the water to drill and frack its wells.
Speaking of electric fracking, this past summer CNX Resources converted to using 100% electric frac fleets in its drilling operations (see 
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Toby Rice, still relatively new in his role of CEO at EQT, spoke about changing the culture at the nation’s largest natural gas-producing company. At a Southpointe CEO Association event yesterday afternoon in Washington County, Rice said, “These past 100 days, I tell everybody, they’re on the happiness campaign, they just don’t know it.” Our summary of his comments: “All Aboard the Happy Train!”
Yesterday MDN brought you news about Chesapeake Energy and their third quarter update (see 
Chesapeake Energy, still with a sizable amount of acreage and shale wells in the Pennsylvania Marcellus, issued its third quarter update yesterday. Which happened to set off the chattering class buzzing about the possibility the company is close to declaring bankruptcy. This isn’t the first time “experts” have declared Chessy is close to bankruptcy (see this MDN post from 2016: 
The Big Injun is back in the news. In 2015 Cunningham Energy, a small oil driller based in West Virginia, struck oil in the Big Injun sandstone formation in Clay County, WV (see