Equitrans Stock Tumbles Following Manchin ‘Save MVP’ Bill Failure
One of the unfortunate side effects of Joe Manchin’s so-called permitting reform bill crashing and burning (see “Save MVP” Permitting Bill is Dead – Manchin Pulls it From CR), is how it affects one of the intended beneficiaries–Equitrans Midstream, builder of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Since prospects for passing the bill began to unravel two weeks ago, Equitrans’ stock price is down over 20%, hitting a low of $7.59 per share yesterday. Although the news of permitting reform going down the toilet is not good for MVP, Equitrans maintains the pipeline is still expected to be up and running by the end of next year.
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Yesterday was the first day of the two-day Shale Insight conference being held in Erie, PA. By all accounts, it was a great day. Among the all-stars presenting were Toby Rice, CEO of EQT Corporation, Nick Dell’Osso, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, Greg Floerke, COO of MPLX, and Neil Chatterjee, former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman. The important role of LNG, pipelines, regulations, and more were discussed. One of the themes of the day: Natural gas is not a bridge fuel, but the destination.
After the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad this bill really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it slaps a new tax on oil and gas activities (see 
In all of the hullabaloo over hydrogen energy and the claims that hydrogen will replace natural gas and we will all live in renewable energy paradise–you might want to consider the findings from the leading energy analysts at Cornwall Insight, an energy market intelligence and analysis consultancy located across the pond in the United Kingdom. According to Cornwall analysts, “current and forecast costs all show it is simply uneconomical to use 100% hydrogen fuel for heating our homes.” Attempting to force people to convert to using hydrogen for heating instead of natural gas would “nearly double” the cost of heating a home.
Last month OPEC’s oil production fell short by 3.58 million barrels per day (bpd), which is 3.5% of global oil demand. The U.S. continues to sell oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, nearing the end of what can be sold off. And Russia’s oil exports could fall by some 2.4 million bpd after the EU embargo enters into effect in December. Add to that mix the observation by Saudi Aramco’s CEO, who 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio’s Tim Ryan only supports natgas when he’s in a close race; NATIONAL: You can’t eat without natural gas; INTERNATIONAL: Taliban sign deal with Russia to buy cheap oil and gas; CIA warned Germany about a possible attack on Nord Stream pipes.
We’ll say it right up front: We told you so. From the beginning, when U.S. Senator Joe Manchin announced he had sold out the country and would vote in favor of the horrible (misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act in return for a promise from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to pass a “permitting reform” bill that guarantees to finish the stalled (95% complete) Mountain Valley Pipeline, we told you it was a bad deal (see 
The price of natural gas here in the U.S. has roughly quadrupled in price over the past two years. If you are a landowner or rights owner, you’ve certainly noticed a nice increase in royalty revenue. As we have reported about publicly traded drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, profits and free cash flow over the past couple of quarters have gone through the roof–because of the high price of natgas. The question is, why have prices for natural gas gone so high? And relatedly, will they stay high?
In a clear sign the Democrat Party is desperate with a national election (national referendum on Biden) just 44 days away, our beneficent Dictator in Chief, Joe Biden, has demanded that companies running gas stations, “Bring down the prices you’re charging at the pump to reflect the cost you pay for the product. Do it now. Do it now. Not a month from now — do it now.” He sounded like a raging lunatic when he said it. High prices at the pump are the result of Biden’s own socialist, very misguided policies. Yet he attempts to scapegoat and blame it on the thousands of individual companies that vend gasoline in a free-and-open market.
Americans, indeed just about every human on the planet alive today, have been so thoroughly brainwashed that burning fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming and is “bad” or “evil,” that when someone comes along to say, “Wait a minute, what if more carbon dioxide is a good thing,” that person is considered a crackpot. Let us ask that question. What if more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is actually helping Mom Earth, not hurting Mom Earth? Is it possible?
A small group of landowners in southwestern Virginia who have lost all of their previous attempts to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from crossing their property have made one last-ditch effort to fundamentally change the laws of the entire country to prevent this one pipeline. The landowners, obviously using Big Green money, have appealed their losing case to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the high court to hear their case against FERC’s (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) right to delegate its eminent domain power to a private pipeline company–in this case to MVP.
In February 2020, EQT Corporation’s credit rating (for company-issued bonds) was designated at the “junk” (i.e. non-investment grade) level. In March of this year, two of the three top credit rating agencies–Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings–upgraded EQT’s credit rating, returning it to investment grade (see 
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) is one of four natural gas distribution companies owned by Southern Company. VNG provides natural gas service to more than 300,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in southeast Virginia. Since 2012, VNG has replaced nearly 500 miles of the aging pipeline, resulting in a 27% reduction in methane emissions. VNG is a little over halfway through spending $360 million on infrastructure upgrades.