Big Turnover at EQT Board – Chairwoman, 3 Others Leaving (4 of 14)
Something of surprise (at least for us) is that four EQT Corporation board of directors members, including the board’s chairwoman, are “retiring” and leaving the board. That’s four out of 14 board members (28%, over one-fourth). Is it a bloodbath? Widespread unrest? House cleaning? No, we don’t suspect any of those things. It may be a coincidence that four members have decided to leave as of the next annual meeting, which has not yet been set, or it might not be a coincidence. The new independent chairman of the board will be Thomas Karam. Sound familiar? Tom was the CEO of Equitrans Midstream Corporation, the company that built Mountain Valley Pipeline. EQT bought out Equitrans and merged with it in July 2024. Karam came to the board last year when the companies merged. Read More “Big Turnover at EQT Board – Chairwoman, 3 Others Leaving (4 of 14)”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday, the agency’s monthly best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. In this latest assessment, EIA said the natural gas price at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub is expected to average $3.80 per million British thermal units (MMBtus) in 2025—up about 23% from its January forecast ($3.10). EIA also raised its estimate for 2026, putting the annual average price at $4.20 MMBtus, up 5% compared with $4.00 in its January report. 
The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) owns and manages more than 1.5 million acres of state game lands throughout the Commonwealth. The primary purpose of these lands is the management of habitat for wildlife and providing opportunities for lawful hunting and trapping. You might think PGC gets most of its revenue from hunting and trapping licenses and fees. You would be wrong. PGC allows shale drilling on some of its vast holdings, and leases and royalties generate 39% of the income for PGC (as of 2024). The problem (if you can call it a problem) is that royalty revenue from shale for the PGC varies widely from year to year. For example, the revenue flowing to PGC from shale during its last fiscal year decreased by a whopping 46%. But the PGC was ready. The way the PGC prepares for those wild swings is instructive for all landowners. 
In December, MDN told you the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, proposed new changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system first. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind (see 
Geothermal energy has been called the ‘redheaded stepchild’ of renewable energy. Lefties have a love/hate relationship with geothermal energy. Geothermal uses the same identical drilling rigs, drills the same holes in the ground, and even uses the same fracking technology used to drill shale oil and gas wells. But drilling and fracking for geothermal is righteous and clean and pure as wind-driven snow (for the left), while drilling and fracking for oil and gas is evil, Satanic, and destroying the environment. The left tolerates geothermal because it’s not fossil energy. Momentum for geothermal is growing, and money is beginning to pour in, according to Cindy Taff, CEO of geothermal company Sage Geosystems. 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: CA Republicans urge Trump admin to fight state’s attack on natural gas; NATIONAL: How Donald Trump has turned the Green Movement on its head; Tariffs or no tariffs, the world wants and needs America’s natural gas; Automakers look to pass gambling debts on to taxpayers; INTERNATIONAL: WTI dips below $72 as US-Russia talks shift outlook; Mexico energy chiefs call for 50% increase in natgas production by 2030; LNG is a sellers market for now; European energy industry urges EU not to cap gas prices. 
A Washington County, PA, judge is closing the barn door about 12 years late. On February 7, Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brandon P. Neuman ruled Sunoco Pipeline, LLC (i.e., Energy Transfer) did not have the eminent domain authority to take property for the Mariner East Pipelines in 2013 from Bradley and Amy Simon (in Washington County), and possibly many other property owners. The case alleges that while ME gained eminent domain authority later, when the company negotiated with the Simons (and potentially others), it did not have that legal authority, yet it claimed it did. The Simons signed a lease they otherwise would not have signed if they had full information. They either would not have signed, or perhaps negotiated a bigger payment. That’s the gist of the story—that ME fraudulently presented claims. 
CNX Resources’ Radical Transparency™ program is a first-of-its-kind public-private collaboration announced between CNX and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in November 2023 (see 
There are a lot of nonprofits that do a lot of great work. MDN editor Jim Willis has served on several boards of such groups. We say that to preface two posts today that take aim at nonprofits (otherwise called NGOs or nongovernmental organizations) that are NOT doing great work and, in some cases, are corrupt. Most large public companies will find a few NGOs and hand money to them as part of their “S” in ESG (environment, social, governance) programs. Companies that donate allow NGOs to distribute the money to various agencies, causes, and other nonprofits. The problem is the NGOs often don’t do a good job. Sometimes, the NGOs have sticky fingers and keep some of the money for themselves. CNX Resources, a big publicly traded driller in the Marcellus/Utica, takes a different approach to charity. 
Last week, President Trump issued a directive to the heads of Executive Branch agencies to review all funding said agencies provide to NGOs (nongovernmental organizations). The aim is to pull the plug on funding NGOs engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. There’s a LOT of corruption in NGOs. Big money from the federal government (taxpayers!) flows in, and the NGOs give it to crazy anti-American, anti-energy programs and agencies. Elon Musk is convinced there’s a LOT of corruption in the form of payments (kickbacks) going to grease the palms of people all along the food chain. Our specific interest is in defunding environmental NGOs—organizations like the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, and other disgusting organizations that are using (at least in part) OUR money. 
We’ve made this observation many times over the years, but here we go again. Ever notice how lefty environmentalists “demand” this and “demand” that? They’re a very demanding bunch, which is why nobody pays them any attention (except us). Here’s the latest example. A group of 30 “organizations” (many of them fronts for one or two people) sent a letter to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine demanding that he block/suspend/pause shale drilling under (not on) Ohio state lands, including parks. The letter uses factual inaccuracies and outright lies to try and scare DeWine into blocking legal drilling under state-owned land. 
According to an investigative reporter for Penn State, between 2018 and 2023, Pennsylvania fined Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Sunoco at least $42 million in connection to the construction of Mariner East II. Some $10 million of that came from a deal with the PA Attorney General’s office (who happened to be Josh Shapiro at the time) for supposed repeat contaminations of waterways, failures to report environmental damage, and the use of unapproved chemicals in drilling fluid (see 
We’ve covered the ongoing spat between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and the PJM Interconnection electricity grid that covers all or parts of 13 states plus D.C. Last Friday, we brought you an editorial from the Wall Street Journal that echos the arguments we’ve made that Shapiro himself is to blame for rising electricity prices in PJM (see