Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 16, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Former EQT CEO Rob McNally gets $3.4M to leave company; PA conventional drillers want to restore program to spread brine on roads; Watson to helm Utica Shale Academy; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Fracking in California is about to get a lot more difficult; NATIONAL: EIA expects U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions to fall in 2019; Why U.S. exports of LNG to China are expected to be a major component of a trade deal; Protest at Massachusetts home of FERC member Cheryl LaFleur; INTERNATIONAL: Climate Apartheid? (video); GALACTIC: The meaning of methane on Mars.
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The clock is now ticking for Toby and Derek Rice who have made big promises about the future of the company they just seized control of (EQT). The Rice boys have a “100 day plan” they have already begun to implement. During the proxy fight to control EQT’s board, and ultimately its management team, Toby Rice threw some sharp barbs including talk that EQT’s existing management was not up to the task. The Rice boys said so, their board nominees said so, heck, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said so too. There will be change (i.e. personnel change) at the “operational level” said ISS. But apparently that change only extended to two people: EQT’s (now former) CEO Robert McNally, and EQT’s (now former) top attorney, Jonathan Lushko–who were shown the door.
Do you consider it “free speech” to assemble a mob outside someone’s home at 2 o’clock in the morning and start hollering and shouting, beating a drum, thereby threatening and menacing an innocent family in that home? We sure don’t call it free speech. We call it gang activity–or maybe even terrorism. When the people inside the home feel threatened, what else can you call it? That’s what happened to EQT’s then-CEO Rob McNally and his family in the early morning hours of July 10, the day he lost his job following EQT’s annual meeting. Those outside doing the terrorizing were radical anti-fossil fuel nutters–some from out of state. Crazies. They should have been arrested. They weren’t.
One of West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, Joe Manchin, is not happy that the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by China and his home state is hush hush. Manchin has not seen a copy of that agreement and he wants to see it, NOW. At a Senate hearing last week, Manchin made noise about the $83.7 billion deal signed by WV and China, part of a Trump Administration effort, back in 2017 (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2018 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the third year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. What does the 2018 report show?
A little good news coming from New England, for a change. Over objections of radical anti-fossil fuel nutters, the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Friday granted an air permit for a compressor station in Weymouth. The compressor station is part of the Spectra Energy/Enbridge Atlantic Bridge expansion project, stalled since 2017. The administration of MA Gov. Charlie Baker (RINO) issued an air permit for the project in January of this year (see 
Dominion Energy began work on the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project in West Virginia in May 2018 (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: It’s not too late for New York to start fracking; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Total kicks up investment in Tellurian’s Driftwood LNG; TS Barry puts 70% of US LNG capacity at risk; Are e-fracs a fix for Permian gas constraints and giveaway prices?; NATIONAL: How Mike Bloomberg pays to prosecute the Trump EPA; Republicans struggle to unite on climate message; Where U.S. exports of butanes and natural gasoline end up; INTERNATIONAL: Pieridae agrees Goldboro LNG deal extension with Uniper; IEA – Huge oil glut coming in 2020; Cuadrilla to restart fracking at British site; 9 things to know about the booming global liquefied natural gas market.
Last July a group of 100+ southwestern Pennsylvania landowners sued EQT for failure to pay them rental fees for storing natural gas under their properties (see 
Little by little, piece by piece, the evidence continues to mount that PTT Global Chemical and their partner Daelim Chemical will make a positive final investment decision (FID) to build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH. On Monday we told you the State of Ohio is investing another $30 million in the project, even though the project is not officially a done deal, yet (see 
In March 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion project (see