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Bidenistas at FTC Clear EQT to Complete Buyout of Tug Hill & XcL
Last September, EQT Corporation announced it was buying privately-owned 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). However, the Bidenistas at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got involved slowing down the deal. Because of the FTC dragging its feet, EQT and Tug Hill renegotiated the timeline adding a full year–to the end of 2023 (see EQT $5.2B Deal to Buy Tug Hill Extended Additional Year to Close). Good news: After delaying the deal by nearly a year, the Bidenistas at the FTC have given their blessing on the deal. The deal is expected to close within seven days.
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Project Canary, a program that certifies natural gas drillers and pipeline companies as producing responsibly sourced gas (RSG), continues to make big inroads in the Marcellus/Utica. Earlier this week MDN told you that Olympus Energy will use Project Canary to certify both its drilling and (believed to be a first in the country) its gathering pipeline system (see 
New permit activity once again picked up last week after the previous week showed a paltry number of permits. In Pennsylvania 10 new permits were issued, all but one of them in the northeastern dry gas area of the state. In Ohio 4 new permits were issued, all of them for the same driller on the same well pad. And in West Virginia, 7 new permits were issued. One of the permits appears to be issued to a private landowner drilling his own shale well! And in another oddity, four WV permits were issued to a midstream company.
It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again we read about driller or (in this case) pipeline company operating in the Marcellus/Utica we had never heard of before. Such is the case today. A new (to us) midstream company, XcL Midstream, has formed and is already building a dry gas gathering pipeline system in West Virginia, with plans to build a wet gas gathering system in WV too. According to its website, XcL “operates in the premier region of the Appalachia basin in Marshall and Wetzel Counties, West Virginia. XcL Midstream’s Appalachia Connector Pipeline is strategically located at the intersection of every major long-haul interstate pipeline system in Southwest Appalachia and provides shippers with market price optionality.” XcL plans to gather and process dry gas, wet gas (i.e. natural gas liquids), and transport water for its customers. XcL has its headquarters in Canonsburg, PA, near Pittsburgh. The reason that the company popped up on our radar is because Platts ran an article announcing that XcL has signed a customer–THQ Appalachia I, an affiliate of Tug Hill–to use 600 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d) on the dry gas pipeline, 200 Mmcf/d on the wet gas pipeline system, and to use a forthcoming water pipeline to boot. Here’s the thing: both XcL and THQ/Tug Hill are backed by private equity company Quantum Energy Partners. So apparently this is one of Quantum’s portfolio companies doing business with another of Quantum’s portfolio companies. In essence, one cousin helping out the other cousin. Perhaps we can call them kissin’ cousins?…