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Pipeline Owners Beware: EQT May Let Range’s Pipe Contracts Expire
When EQT announced on Oct. 26 that it would buy Range Resources (see EQT Swallows Range Resources in $50B Merger: Biggest M-U News Ever!), most of the talk was about size. The combined company will be the biggest gas producer in the country, eclipsing current #1 Expand Energy. A new analysis from East Daley Analytics looks at a different question: what happens to the pipeline companies that move Range’s gas and liquids? East Daley’s answer: much of the money EQT hopes to save will come from letting Range’s pipeline contracts expire. That’s bad news for some big pipeline owners, starting in 2028. And EQT management hinted at the same thing on deal day. Read More “Pipeline Owners Beware: EQT May Let Range’s Pipe Contracts Expire”
TC Energy, the Canadian pipeline giant that owns Columbia Gas Transmission (the No. 1 pipeline operator in Appalachia, by its own count), released its third-quarter 2026 results last Thursday. The big news for our region: TC approved a US$1.8 billion expansion of its Crossroads pipeline, designed in part to carry Marcellus/Utica gas west to the Midwest. CEO François Poirier said Crossroads and the Appalachia Supply Project (approved in April) amount to “two major arteries of egress out of the Appalachian Basin.” TC also told analysts it expects Appalachian gas production to grow by another 10 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) by 2035. Music to our ears! 
Ten weeks. Still 33. The Marcellus/Utica held at 33 rigs for the week ended November 6, a tenth straight week at the same number. The national count finally broke its four-week stay at 603, edging up one to 604, a new 52-week high. Oil rigs added one and gas rigs added one. Frac spreads climbed by four, ending a three-week slide. On the price board, it was a tale of two commodities: WTI fell 12.76% for the week, back down to $90.83 a barrel, while December natural gas rose 10 cents to $2.998 per MMBtu, a whisker under $3. Plus: Devon drops off the Enverus permit list after four weeks at nine, Range Resources’ permits fall back to earth, and EQT and EOG are now tied for the top spot on the rig list. 
Enbridge, the Canadian pipeline giant that owns Texas Eastern (TETCO), Algonquin Gas Transmission, half of the NEXUS Pipeline, and Ohio’s biggest gas utility, issued its third-quarter 2026 update on Friday. For the Marcellus/Utica, the big news is Project Beacon, the ~300 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) Algonquin expansion into New England. Enbridge says it expects to finalize customer contracts early in the new year. There’s also a rate deal for Enbridge Gas Ohio, a new TVA pipeline that ties into TETCO, and some diplomatic words about Ohio’s new governor from Enbridge’s incoming CEO. 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility, pipeline and drilling company that plans to spin off its Seneca Resources drilling subsidiary as a separate public company in the second half of 2027, issued its fiscal fourth-quarter (Jul-Sep) and full-year 2026 update this week. (NFG’s fiscal year runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.) The parent company had a very good year, with adjusted earnings up 9%. Seneca, not so much. Seneca’s production dropped 7% in the quarter to 104 Bcf (about 1.13 Bcf/d). Full-year output of 419.5 Bcf came in below even the lowered guidance, and Seneca expects fiscal 2027 production to be roughly flat. Management blamed three things: a dud Marcellus pad in Lycoming County, so-so Upper Utica results, and “frac interactions” (better known as frac hits) between Lower Utica wells in Tioga County. The good news is that Seneca thinks it knows what went wrong, and it expects growth to resume in fiscal 2028. 
Two weeks ago, MDN told you Kinder Morgan had made a final investment decision (FID) to build the Southeast Connector, a 2.6 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) pipeline designed to carry Marcellus/Utica gas into the Southeast (see 
If you were waiting for NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy to back up a bigger truck of cash to Virginia’s door (we were), you’ll have to keep waiting. On Tuesday, Nov. 3, the two companies filed rebuttal testimony with Virginia’s State Corporation Commission (SCC), the agency reviewing their $67 billion merger. They said “yes” to 101 of the 117 conditions that SCC staff and the Attorney General’s consumer counsel asked for, and “yes, with changes” to 13 more. But there’s no new money this time. The bill credit is the same $10 a month for four years they offered in September. What’s new is fine print: a conditional financial firewall around Dominion’s Virginia utility and two independent board members. And the companies flatly said “no” to Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s six-year rate freeze, plus a three-year freeze on rate increases pushed by the Attorney General’s consumer counsel. The pot didn’t get sweeter. It got more lawyerly. 
MPLX, the Marathon Petroleum offshoot that bought Utica pioneer MarkWest Energy in 2015, released its third-quarter 2026 results yesterday, and the Marcellus/Utica (M-U) numbers look very good. Marcellus gathering volumes rose 21% from a year ago, and Utica gathering volumes rose 19%. In August, MPLX started up its new Harmon Creek III gas processing plant in Washington County, PA, which added 300 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of capacity (see 
Williams, the Tulsa company that owns the Transco pipeline (the biggest artery carrying Marcellus/Utica gas to the East Coast), turned in a record third quarter on Monday. But the most important thing for MDN readers came on Tuesday’s earnings call: management admitted that the Third Circuit’s decision to toss New Jersey’s water permit for the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project “could put at risk our ability to get it online in time for next winter”. Meanwhile, the Southeast side of Transco keeps growing, a new Leidy Line expansion is at FERC, four Williams gas-fired power plants for data centers are rising in Ohio, and Constitution Pipeline? Not one word. 
Energy Transfer (ET), the Dallas-based pipeline giant behind the Rover Pipeline and the Mariner East system, reported its third-quarter 2026 results yesterday. The top-line numbers were big: adjusted EBITDA of $5.03 billion, up 31% from $3.84 billion a year ago. But for the MDN audience, the real story is in the details. ET has started a new 15-year, 250,000 MMBtu/d deal on Rover with an unnamed Marcellus driller. One customer on ET’s newly approved South Mississippi Pipeline has signed up for long-term capacity to move Marcellus/Utica gas south starting in 2029. And ET says the ethane export expansion at its Marcus Hook terminal near Philadelphia is on schedule for the second half of 2027, with roughly 75% of the new capacity already spoken for. Plus, co-CEO Marshall “Mackie” McCrea said goodbye on the call and had some choice words for pipeline saboteurs. 
Dominion Energy, Virginia’s biggest electric utility, reported third-quarter results on Friday. On the earnings call, CEO Bob Blue talked up offshore wind, solar, and batteries. He said almost nothing about natural gas. The gas news is in the fine print instead. Dominion’s new long-range plan, filed with Virginia regulators on Oct. 15, calls for nearly 9 gigawatts (GW) of new gas-fired power plants. That’s more than the company’s entire Virginia gas fleet today! Dominion is also pushing ahead with gas plants in Chesterfield County, VA, and South Carolina. Meanwhile, the planned $67 billion merger with NextEra Energy faces its make-or-break Virginia hearing, which starts Nov. 17. 
Welcome to a new weekly MDN feature. Every Saturday, the Pennsylvania Bulletin (the state’s official gazette) publishes page after page of permit applications and approvals from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Most of it covers sewage plants, quarries, and crematories. But buried in there is a steady trickle of shale-related permits: new well pad air permits, earthmoving permits for pads and pipelines, renewals, and spill cleanups. We read it so you don’t have to. Last week’s edition (Oct 31, Vol. 56, No. 44) ran 256 pages. Here’s what matters to the shale crowd. 
Four days before Ohioans pick their next governor, Rolling Stone and the climate activist website DeSmog published a story by anti-fossil writer Justin Nobel under the headline “Ohio Denies Evidence of Fracking Waste in Drinking Water. Its Own Records Show Otherwise.” We read every word. The state’s records show no such thing. What they show is one salty water well in Coshocton County that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) investigated in 2021 and traced to a naturally salty layer of rock. Much of the rest is opinion from activists and a water well driller, plus a candidate’s campaign promise. Here’s what the story gets wrong, and what it leaves out.