Two EQT Shareholders Sue Former Board, Executives re Rice Merger
Two EQT Corp. shareholders filed a lawsuit in Allegheny (PA) County Court earlier this week against former top EQT executives and former EQT board members (from 2017) alleging management and the board vastly exaggerated cost reductions and operating efficiencies that would result from a $6.7 billion takeover/merger of Rice Energy. The lawsuit says the former leaders of the company made false statements ahead of the merger, and now should pay.
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Banpu is Thailand’s largest coal mining company. But Banpu is far more than just a coal company. It has multiple subsidiaries in various energy industries scattered around the globe. For example, here in the U.S. Banpu partners with Kalnin Ventures and operates BKV Corporation, the American shale drilling arm of Banpu. We spotted an article in today’s Bangkok Post that says Banpu is about to enter the U.S. power generation market by purchasing a gas-fired power plant–this year.
Although we’ve heard about ESG (environment, social, governance) efforts by shale companies for years, it seems as though Marcellus/Utica drillers have only recently begun to get the ESG religion. In December we told you about an ESG panel discussion at Hart Energy’s DUG East event, normally held in Pittsburgh but virtual this year (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: West Virginia Gov. Justice to submit tax bill this week; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Exxon and Macquarie in $11.7 million U.S. lawsuit over gas contract; NATIONAL: Biden decision to kill Keystone XL could spell disaster down the tracks; Granholm wakes up DOE’s loan programs office, appoints Jigar Shah; U.S. climate czar urges oil industry to hasten transition to renewables.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released their latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for October through December 2020 (full copy below). There are two exciting bits of news coming from this report that (so far) nobody else is reporting: (1) After eight consecutive quarters (two years) of declining natgas production from shale (comparing the current quarter to the same quarter from the previous year), the trend reversed in 4Q20; and (2) even with all of the curtailments from Marcellus producers in PA last year, the state still produced a record high volume of natural gas–an all-time high record!
The pandemic did its best to shut the world down, and maybe it succeeded in shutting down other countries–but not here in the US of A. Against an onslaught of shutdowns (particularly in “blue” states), people staying home, businesses closing, anarchy and chaos in large Democrat cities…and against an onslaught against fossil fuels by environmental Nazis seeking to destroy the economies of the world via bans of oil and natural gas and coal…U.S. natural gas production decreased by just 1 percent last year. Can you believe it? That’s a victory in our book!
Two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that Summit Natural Gas of Maine, a regional utility company, announced plans to extend their service territory into Maine’s Midcoast region with a $90 million pipeline project (see 
We’re done with the American Petroleum Institute (API) if they actually do what the Wall Street Journal says they’re about to do: Endorse and support a tax on carbon dioxide–the stuff you breathe out with every breath you take. Of course, API is largely controlled by huge multi-national corporations that don’t give a #$@! about the United States of America. Their only aim is to make money by putting their smaller competitors (called “independents”) out of business. The API is even rumored to now support the Paris Climate Accord, which is nothing more than abject theft of American wealth (via taxes) to give to other countries, with NO climate benefit. Yes, we’re done with the API.
Shell, one of the world’s biggest traders of LNG, released its fifth annual LNG Outlook report for 2021 last week (full copy below). Shell says global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) increased from 358 million tonnes (Mt) in 2019 to 360 Mt in 2020. It would have been a lot higher had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic and the shutdown of the worldwide economy. Hauling out the crystal ball, Shell makes a compelling case in the latest Outlook that worldwide demand for LNG will double to 700 Mt by 2040–in under 20 years! Can you imagine?
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received 7 new permits. In something of a twist, Ohio received 15 new permits (two companies), far more permits than we’ve seen in some time. And West Virginia received 5 new permits.
Some two and a half years after Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline entered service in western Pennsylvania and exploded following a landslide, the pipeline finally returned to service yesterday. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a press release to say it had extracted another $125,000 from ET and has allowed the pipeline to resume service.
In September 2016, local utility company Duke Energy filed a plan to build a critically-needed natural gas pipeline near Cincinnati, OH to replace an old pipeline built in the 1950s. Duke needs to replace the pipe or some of the half-million Duke customers in the region won’t get natural gas anymore. Following multiple revisions to the plan to satisfy anti-pipeline wackos (who will never be satisfied), in November 2019 the Ohio Power Siting Board gave Duke final approval to build the Central Corridor Gas Pipeline Project along an alternative route (see 
A few weeks ago during his “State of the State” address, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced a plan to eliminate the state’s personal income tax. Who wouldn’t love that idea? We sure would! But in order to replace the $2.1 billion received annually from the personal income tax, Justice would raise other taxes, including a tiered system that potentially raises the state’s oil and gas severance tax. We don’t like that idea so much. However, the reaction to Justice’s proposal by the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia (GO-WV) may surprise you.
In the closing hours of the 2014 West Virginia legislative session, the legislature passed SB373, the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (see