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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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The ARCH2 (Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub) project, the West Virginia-led effort to attract government funding for one of 6-10 regional hydrogen hubs, has just landed its second major commitment–even though ARCH2 hasn’t officially been selected for government funding. Yesterday Fidelis New Energy announced it has selected Mason County, WV, for a $2 billion “net-zero” hydrogen production facility and low carbon microgrid, which it has dubbed The Mountaineer GigaSystem. The Fidelis plan includes building data centers powered by net-zero hydrogen. Mountaineer will use FidelisH2 technology that produces hydrogen with zero lifecycle carbon emissions from a combination of Marcellus/Utica gas, renewable energy, and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration).
Yesterday we told you the liars of the left are doing their best to sew disinformation and fear about Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and the installation of the remaining 6% of the pipeline that’s not already in the ground (see 
Looks like the three Democrat judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit) value their own jobs more than defeating the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. On Friday, the three-judge panel that has opposed MVP in just about every decision they’ve issued since 2018 dismissed the remaining two cases against MVP after being overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago (see 
Even though the radicalized left has been defeated in their attempts to block the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, they won’t go quietly (they never do). The liars of the left are trying to plant seeds of fear and doubt in the residents of West Virginia and Virginia that as soon as the remaining 6% of MVP pipe is buried in the ground and begins to flow, a piece of that newly installed pipeline will blow up because the pipe has been sitting above ground for years and the special epoxy coating that prevents corrosion has degraded by sitting in the sun. Yet another lie from the left.
It’s gettin’ ugly out there. For the fifth week in a row and the 14th in the last 15 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. Last week the number decreased by ANOTHER five rigs, after falling five rigs the week before, and five the week before that–now down to 654 active rigs across both oil and gas. Sadly, the Marcellus dropped two rigs last week for a combined M-U rig count of 43–the lowest this year. Some 15 weeks ago, the M-U lost four rigs (going from 53 down to 49). Eight weeks ago, we lost another rig, down to 48. Two weeks ago, we lost two more rigs, down to 46. Last week we lost one. And this week, two more rigs disappeared–both gone from Pennsylvania. The trend is not our friend. We wish we had better news.
You never know how Marcellus/Utica gas affects the entire country for the good. Here’s an interesting example. In April, the ARCH2 (Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub) project, the West Virginia-led effort to attract $1 billion of government funding for one of 6-10 regional hydrogen hubs, took a big leap forward with the announcement of a plan to build a “multi-billion-dollar” clean ammonia manufacturing facility in southern West Virginia (see 
In May, the Bidenistas at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a hellscape of new regulations (681 pages) aimed at forcing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to close (see 
One year ago, we reported the sad (and angering) news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a liberal Democrat from West Virginia, had betrayed his WV constituents and the entire country by secretly cutting a deal to vote for Joe Biden’s New Green Deal bill repackaged under the false and misleading name of the Inflation Reduction Act (see 
For the fourth week in a row and the 13th time in the last 14 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. It’s grueling. Last week the number decreased by five rigs after falling five rigs the week before–now down to 659 active rigs across both oil and gas. The Marcellus dropped one rig (in Pennsylvania) for a combined M-U rig count of 45–the lowest this year. Some 14 weeks ago, the M-U lost four rigs (going from 53 down to 49). Seven weeks ago, we lost another rig, down to 48. Last week we lost two more down to 46, and this week another. The trend is not our friend.
West Virginia’s state budget runs from July 1 through the following year’s June 30. WV’s General Revenue collections for July 2023, the first month of Fiscal Year 2024, came in at a respectable $7.7 million above estimates, with total collections of $335 million. However, that $335 million collected is 12% lower than the $381 million collected in July 2022. What seems to be a major difference is a crash in severance tax (on coal and natural gas) collections, down some 93% year over year.
Equitrans Midstream issued its second quarter update yesterday, and WOW, what an update! The company had lots to talk about following the high drama surrounding its Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project over the past couple of months. Equitrans CEO Tom Karam said following the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention, construction has now resumed on MVP and will likely take 4-5 months to finish up the 94% completed project. He expects MVP, barring any severe weather issues that might slow construction, will be online and flowing 2 Bcf/d of Marcellus/Utica molecules by the end of this year. Hallelujah!
In February 2022, Equitrans Midstream announced it had filed a new pipeline expansion project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties for the purpose of assessing property taxes. The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule in the summer of 2021 that was, quite frankly, a mess. In March 2022, the legislature passed, and Gov. Jim Justice signed into law, House Bill (HB) 4336, aimed at fixing the mess created by HB 2581 (see 
Last week, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) hopped up on his high horse and held a hearing of the Senate committee he chairs, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to discuss the next steps for so-called permitting reform. It takes years to build a new pipeline, and sometimes decades to build a new electric power line. Solar and wind and hydro projects are as susceptible to long delays as fossil energy projects. Manchin (many people in the D.C. swamp) want to “fix” that problem.