EQT Announces Deal to *Buy* LNG from Rio Grande LNG Train 5
Last week, we told you that EQT Corporation announced it had contracted with Sempra’s Port Arthur LNG Phase 2 project in Jefferson County, Texas, to buy 2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG from the facility for a 20-year term (see EQT Announces Deal to *Buy* LNG from Sempra’s Port Arthur LNG). We also reported (in that post) the rumor that EQT was deep in talks with another facility, NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export facility in Texas, to buy LNG. The rumor was true. Yesterday, both EQT and NextDecade announced a signed deal. Read More “EQT Announces Deal to *Buy* LNG from Rio Grande LNG Train 5”
On Oct. 1, 2024, Chesapeake Energy announced that its buyout of and merger with Southwestern Energy in a $7.4 billion deal had been completed (see 
Wow! Here’s a bombshell rumor. Antero Resources, the country’s fifth-largest natural gas producer and largest producer in West Virginia, is preparing to market its Ohio Utica assets, hoping to fetch $900 million to $1 billion. That’s according to an exclusive report by Hart Energy, which spoke to “multiple sources” who requested anonymity. Antero owns 82,000 acres of leases in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale of eastern Ohio, in “the most prolific part of the play,” according to the company’s website. 
Some interesting comments about the “deep” Utica Shale in Pennsylvania were made during last week’s Hart Energy DUG Appalachia event, held in Pittsburgh. Including this one, from Mike Hillebrand, CEO of Huntley & Huntley: “The deep Utica, watch out folks. The deep Utica will probably be the next up-and-coming deep shale play here in Pennsylvania.” Hillebrand also broke some big news by announcing Huntley & Huntley, which recently completed the sale of its Olympus Energy subsidiary to EQT for $1.8 billion, is working on its next startup, which will focus on “deep Utica and Tier II Marcellus.” 
For the week of August 18 – 24, the number of permits issued to drill new wells in the Marcellus/Utica nearly doubled from the previous week. There were 30 new permits issued across the three M-U states last week, a significant increase from the 16 issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania issued the lion’s share with 14 new permits. Six of PA’s permits went to EQT for a single pad in Greene County. Four permits were issued to Expand Energy for a pad in Bradford County. Three permits were awarded to Sabre Energy for a pad in Sullivan County. And a single permit was issued to Range Resources in Beaver County. 
ExxonMobil issued its annual Energy Outlook yesterday, a report that peers into the crystal ball to predict where the energy sector is headed from now until 2050. The company bets its future on what it thinks will happen. In this latest report, Exxon projects that global natural gas demand will rise by over 20% by 2050, as it replaces coal in industry and meets growing electricity needs in developing countries. Based on that view, the company plans to grow its production by 18% over the next five years. Exxon predicts that global oil demand will plateau after 2030, although it is expected to remain above 100 million barrels per day. The crystal ball suggests that gasoline demand will drop 25% due to the rise of electric vehicles (we beg to differ). However, demand for distillates for transportation is expected to remain strong. 
This is a “man bites dog” kind of story. EQT Corporation, now the second-largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (not far behind Expand Energy), has been pushing LNG (liquefied natural gas) for years. Since 2022, we’ve called EQT CEO Toby Rice the “apostle of LNG,” spreading the LNG gospel far and wide in an effort to expand U.S. LNG exports (see 
MDN previously brought you the news that Infinity Natural Resources (INR) CEO Zack Arnold was interested in “lower level” deals to buy Utica Shale assets situated near INR’s existing leasehold positions (see 
Just coming to light for us: Freeport Township, located in Greene County, PA, declared a Disaster Emergency on June 23, 2025. The emergency is related to a “frac-out” at an EQT well that happened three years ago, in July 2022 (see 
Another important lawsuit involving whether or not a driller can deduct from royalty checks for post-production expenses was just decided by the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Seventh District in Carroll County. The rights owner in this case, Gateway Royalty II, sued Encino Energy (EAP Ohio) over the issue of deducting post-production expenses from the company’s overriding royalty interests. This is slightly different from the usual post-production issue for landowners/rights owners. 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its highly dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, 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 August 23 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC renewed 57 general water use permits in June and July for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. So far in 2025, the SRBC has issued or renewed 282 general water use permits for shale gas development.