Recruiting, Retaining Talent Key Issue at Marcellus to Market Conf
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) held its annual Marcellus to Market conference at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows in Washington, PA. The event explored efforts to promote manufacturing in Pennsylvania, natural gas as a transportation fuel, the future of the long-rumored Appalachian Storage Hub, and the latest regarding pipelines and other means of delivering natural gas to market. A key focus for the event and topic for a panel discussion in the morning was workforce recruiting, development, and retention. MDN friend Charlie Schliebs, Chairman of the Energy Innovation Center Institute and Managing Director of Stone Pier Capital Advisors, moderated this lively panel.
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The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” New Jersey is attempting to abridge the freedom of speech for Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute (API). NJ has sued those entities claiming they knew that the products they manufacture and promote (oil and gas) have caused global warming and that these entities have lied, and continue to lie, about knowing. NJ wants to muzzle the right of the API and Exxon, et al., to freely defend themselves and stick up for fossil energy, claiming to do so endangers the public and harms the residents of NJ. It’s the most outlandish thing you’ve ever heard.
In December 2020, Dan Rice IV, former CEO of Rice Energy and a member of the EQT board of directors, launched a “blank check” acquisition firm, called Rice Acquisition Corp., to invest in various energy ventures. Dan found his something-to-invest-in just a few months later in the form of acquiring and merging together Archaea Energy and Aria Energy into a single company focused on providing renewable natural gas (RNG) and “green” hydrogen (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has assessed a $670,000 fine plus extra “cost recovery” charges of nearly $30,000 against the Shell Pipeline Company for work done between 2019 and 2021 on Shell’s Falcon ethane pipeline project. The DEP says that a series of inspections showed “failure to comply” with this paperwork requirement and that paperwork requirement. There were a few instances of erosion into “waters of the commonwealth.” But in the end, the DEP acknowledges, “no visual aquatic impacts were observed.” No muddy water. No dead fishies. No dead salamanders. No dead nothing. In other words, the DEP fined Shell for nothing–no lasting impacts on the environment from the work done to construct the Falcon pipeline.
Two days ago, MDN told you that the Apostle of LNG, Toby Rice (CEO of EQT), had convinced his buddies at Williams and TC Energy (two pipeline companies) to join him in his latest effort to push for more U.S. LNG exports (see 
Another week of pathetically low numbers for new shale drilling permits issued during the week of Oct. 3-9. The previous week saw only nine new permits too. All of a sudden, Pennsylvania is seeing far fewer permits issued than is typical. Just five new permits were issued in PA for Oct. 3-9, with all five in the northeastern part of the state. Chesapeake received two permits, and Coterra received three permits. In Ohio, just four permits were issued, with two going to Diversified Energy (typically doesn’t drill new wells) in Monroe County, and two going to Encino Energy in Harrison County. West Virginia had a big, fat, goose egg last week. No new permits.
EQT Corporation filed a Form 8-K on Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission to let regulators (and investors) know that the company has lost money on derivatives. EQT told regulators that (on paper), the company lost $1.627 billion on derivatives during the third quarter of 2022, and has lost a total of $5.55 billion in total for the first nine months (quarters 1-3) of this year. But does that mean EQT has actually paid that much money out of pocket?
EQT CEO Toby Rice has been and is on a mission to spread the gospel of LNG (see 
We’ve heard of vegetable gardens. We’ve heard of flower gardens. We’ve heard of rose gardens. Remember the Lynn Anderson song, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden”? We’ve also heard of rock gardens, raised gardens, herb gardens, and indoor gardens. One garden we hadn’t heard about until today is a “rain garden.” Ever heard that term? Rice Energy (now part of EQT Corporation) is paying a big fine, $147,250, for work done at a well site in Greene County, PA, in 2019 that allowed erosion and soil to contaminate not one but three rain gardens. I beg your pardon!
Equinor, Norway’s largest oil company (state-owned, used to be called Statoil before they became ashamed to have the word “oil” in their name), announced it had achieved 100% certification for its natural gas produced in the Ohio Utica using Equitable Origin’s EO100™ standard. Equinor now produces “responsible” natural gas for its 27,000 operational net acres, and 242,000 non-operational net acres. Congrats!
In September, EQT Corporation announced it is buying Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see 
There’s ESG, and then there’s ESG. We’ve tried to make this distinction a number of times, and will use the latest ESG report issued by Antero Resources to make the distinction again. When a huge (very important) company like Antero Resources, a natural gas driller focused on West Virginia, talks about ESG (or Environmental, Social, and Governance), it’s talking about all of the things the company does to prove to wackos that it behaves in an environmentally responsible manner when extracting hydrocarbons out of the ground. When the wackos talk about ESG, they mean (a) get everyone to divest from fossil energy, and (b) if a company happens to be in the fossil energy business, it needs to move away from extracting oil and gas and toward investing in sketchy so-called renewable energy sources.
In August, Jennifer Granholm, hands down the most incompetent Secretary of Energy ever to hold the office, sent a letter to seven major refinery companies threatening them that if they don’t scale back exports of gasoline, diesel, and other liquid petroleum products, Granholm will have old dementia Joe whip up an executive order slapping a ban on such exports (see 
Chesapeake Energy is interested in new LNG export projects–but not just LNG exported along the Gulf Coast near its new Haynesville assets. Chessy is jazzed about the possibilities of exporting LNG along the East Coast. The company has its eye on a project announced for the Philadelphia area, on the Delaware River (see