ProFrac’s Alpine Silica Frac Sand Subsidiary Launching IPO
ProFrac Holding Corp. is an oilfield service company (OFS) providing well-stimulation services, proppants production, and other complementary products and services to oil and gas companies engaged in the exploration and production (E&P) of unconventional oil and natural gas resources throughout the United States. In other words, ProFrac is a fracker-for-hire. The company has its own subsidiary to provide frac sand called Alpine Silica Holding, LLC. Yesterday, ProFrac, a public company, announced its plans to spin the Alpine subsidiary into its own public company with an initial public offering (IPO).
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In December 2019, New York Attorney General Tish James and her highly-paid associates were thoroughly, completely, 100% humiliated in court when their case against Exxon Mobil, accusing the company of screwing shareholders by keeping secret knowledge they are toasting Mom Earth, was itself toast (see 
Plugging and capping old wells has been in the news a lot lately. The left claims old oil and gas wells are partially responsible for toasting Mom Earth. Bunkum (see our companion story today about the EDF/Google satellite). But, let’s be honest, it’s better to cap old wells than to have them belching methane for years and years. Amid the confusion surrounding this issue is a claim that even plugged wells can and do continue to leak significant quantities of methane. A new study from a British university lays that baseless claim to rest.
NATIONAL: USA Compression boasts record revenues for Q4; API files petition challenging Biden’s oil & gas leasing program; House votes to overturn Biden’s natgas export approval freeze; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC+ oil-cut laggards pledge compliance with targets; OEUK warns of 40,000+ job losses.
EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica) released its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update yesterday. According to CEO Toby Rice, 2023 was a big year for the company which “set multiple drilling world records” and achieved its highest completion efficiency pace ever. Last year, EQT closed on the purchase of Tug Hill and XcL Midstream, adding major assets to the company’s portfolio. In 2023, EQT signed 2.5 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG export agreements to export roughly 5% of EQT’s total natural gas production. The company produced 2,016 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) in 2023, which works out as 5.52 Bcfe per day. As for 2024, Rice says his company is ready and quite willing to throttle back on production and do less drilling than previously planned…if the price of natural gas stays low.
Earlier this week, MDN reported on a bill making its way through West Virginia’s legislative sausage-making process (see 
From time to time, we bring you news of the latest merger and acquisition (M&A) deals happening, especially the deals that impact the Marcellus/Utica. Often, we don’t highlight large M&A deals if they are exclusively between companies operating in other shale plays and regions. One of those deals we ignored was announced on Monday, a proposed merger between publicly-traded Diamondback Energy, which wants to buy privately held Endeavor Energy Resources for $26 billion. Both companies operate in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. The question floating around the O&G space is, who’s left to buy and merge after all of the M&As happening over the past year or so? It’s a pretty short list. One of the companies on that list (with significant Permian acreage, in addition to Marcellus acreage) is Coterra Energy.
So-called “charities” (really nothing of the sort) controlled by Rockefeller family billionaires and charities controlled by billionaire Mike Bloomberg provided millions of dollars in recent years to environmental groups that are campaigning against fossil-fuel projects, including LNG terminals that have been proposed on the Gulf Coast, according to insiders. So says an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal. Frankly, we’re not surprised. Nobody should be surprised that billionaire Democrats are funding these anti-fossil fuel crusades. What everyone SHOULD be surprised by is that the billionaires’ charities are tax-exempt and that they are funding tax-exempt nonprofits to engage in overtly political activities — activities that violate the IRS tax code for nonprofits. Why are ANY of the participants in this scheme tax-exempt?
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is coming on strong everywhere, including the Marcellus/Utica. Two days ago, we told you that Tenaska is looking to lease 80,000 acres in the M-U for CCS (see 
Last August, MDN told you about a new Cambridge University study published in the journal Science exposing the sale of carbon credits as a scam (see 
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) delivered a HUGELY important decision. In April 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who argue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia. The aim of the lawsuit is to prevent any private company from using eminent domain ever again to build public infrastructure — a true disaster of national importance. The D.C. Circuit said in an opinion yesterday that it lacks jurisdiction to rule on the matter, meaning it’s “case closed,” and MVP can finish up the final little bits (it’s about 99% done now).
Here’s the kind of thing you don’t want to read about. Utility giant National Fuel Gas Company, headquartered in Buffalo and parent to Seneca Resources and NFG Midstream (and Empire Pipeline), is suing a former employee and several vendors for buying and installing counterfeit parts at several compressor stations. One such part caused the temporary shutdown at one compressor station in New York’s Southern Tier when the part failed to work correctly.
Encino Energy purchased Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio oil and gas assets (including Utica Shale assets) in 2018 for $2 billion (see