Bidenistas at FTC Probing EQT Deal to Buy Tug Hill’s WV Assets
In September, EQT Corporation announced it is buying Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: EQT Buys Tug Hill’s THQ Appalachia for $5.2 Billion). The deal adds 90,000 acres and 800 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) of production to EQT’s existing, massive, portfolio. Tug Hill and private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners jointly own THQ Appalachia I, LLC (THQA), which is Tug Hill’s subsidiary focused on drilling in the Marcellus, Utica, and Upper Devonian plays in WV. The radicals who now head the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are requesting more information than the mountains already provided–signaling the Bidenistas may try to block the sale using red tape.
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Just last week, we told you that a West Virginia Circuit Court judge who allegedly waved and pointed a gun at an attorney for EQT Corporation during a hearing about a case brought against EQT by landowners for improper deductions of post-production expenses from their royalty payments had resigned (see 
Last week (Nov. 21-27) the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells slumped to 17 from the prior week’s 26. In Pennsylvania, 12 permits were issued, eight to Seneca Resources (one pad) in Cameron County, and four to Chesapeake Energy (one pad) in Bradford County. In Ohio, four permits were issued to Encino Energy, one in Carroll County and three (one pad) in Harrison County. And West Virginia at least received a single new permit, for Antero Resources in Doddridge County, after getting skunked the previous week.
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Diversified has aggressively moved to control methane emissions from its operations over the past year (see 
The partisan bully Josh Shapiro, far-left Attorney General in Pennsylvania (who is becoming Governor on Jan. 1, to PA’s shame), has claimed victory in converting what was at best an accident into a crime against Coterra Energy (née Cabot Oil & Gas). Yesterday in a courtroom in Susquehanna County, PA, Coterra plead “no contest” to a single misdemeanor charge Shapiro ginned up against the company over stray methane in a few water wells in Dimock, PA going back 14 years. It is a horrible miscarriage of justice. We wouldn’t blame Coterra if they NEVER drill another well in the state.
Here in the real world (not the pretend world of leftist radicals who seek to shut down all fossil energy), the Shell ethane cracker finally went online, officially, last week (see 
These days we don’t often see the contract details for new leases signed by landowners to allow shale drilling. We used to see and report on large landowner coalitions and the deals they had struck back in the earlier days of the Marcellus/Utica. But today, about the only time you get any kind of insight into deal amounts comes when municipalities lease land for drilling, given that the business dealings of a municipality must be disclosed publicly. We’re always on the lookout for such deals. Allegheny Township in Westmoreland County (near Pittsburgh) has just approved a shale lease with Olympus Energy to drill under (not on) 27.7 acres of the Tredway Trail. The terms of the deal are…
Banpu is Thailand’s largest coal mining company. But Banpu is far more than just a coal company. It has multiple subsidiaries in various energy industries scattered around the globe. For example, here in the U.S., Banpu partners with Kalnin Ventures and operates BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American shale drilling arm of Banpu (96% owned by Banpu). Over the past seven years, BKV has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV is now (with recent purchases) the largest natural gas producer in the Barnett Shale. Yesterday, BKV (i.e., Banpu) announced it would soon launch an initial public offering (IPO) and trade its stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced that CNX Resources has paid two civil penalty assessments totaling $200,000 for violations at two different well sites in Richhill Township, Greene County. According to the civil penalty assessment paperwork, CNX spilled “production fluids” (wastewater, drilling mud, etc.) and didn’t clean it up quickly enough. Tallying all of the spills, CNX inadvertently spilled 2,170 gallons of production fluid at two sites, and ended up removing roughly 3,400 tons of “contaminated” soil.
Earlier this week, Shell announced its mighty ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA (near Pittsburgh) is finally, ten years after first announcing, fully operational and producing plastic pellets (see