EQT Urges Shareholders to Skip White Proxy Card, Wait for Gold Card
The battle to control EQT continues. Yesterday we brought you the news that Toby and Derek Rice–the Rice brothers, formerly owners of Rice Energy that sold itself to EQT in 2017–sent an open letter to EQT shareholders asking them to vote on the white proxy card that will soon be issued (see Rice Brothers Drop 2 Proposed Board Members from Rice Proxy Card). Today we have EQT’s response, which is a letter to shareholders asking them to “ignore any solicitation materials and discard any white proxy cards you may receive” and instead wait for EQT’s soon-to-be-issued gold proxy card.
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Diversified Gas & Oil owns close to 3 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. In March Diversified announced it had cut a deal to buy 107 operating shale wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for $400 million from HG Energy II (see 
A few weeks ago the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) published a new resource for those interested in checking out the many (many!) job opportunities there are working in the oil and gas industry. Not a list of open positions at specific companies, but a list of jobs and careers. Everything from administrative assistant and attorney to welder and workover rig supervisor. But this isn’t just a laundry list of 75+ careers/jobs, it includes a detailed explanation of what each job does, the amount and type of education required, and a list of places (in Ohio, of course) where you can receive training for that type of job. This is an awesome resource!
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A few new developments to report in the war to control EQT. Late last week brothers Toby and Derek Rice, formerly of Rice Energy, announced they are trimming their slate of proposed EQT board members by two (from nine to seven). There was no explanation for why the two were dropped from consideration, other than the Rice boys said they had reviewed EQT’s proposal to add three new board members (replacing three existing board members), and that two of the three, in the Rices’ opinion, “appear qualified” to serve on the board and “as a result” Rice dropped two of its proposed slate of board members.
Yet another attack on the shale industry by two Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “reporters” (propagandists) who have made a career of unfairly attacking shale–Don Hopey and David Templeton. This latest smear job makes the claim that leachate coming from a landfill piped to a municipal wastewater treatment facility is “contaminated” with all sorts of nasty chemicals (what the heck do you think is in leachate, anyway?!). The claim is the chemicals in the leachate are present because of drillers dumping leftover rock and dirt that comes out of the ground when drilling new holes for shale wells into the landfill.
Select Energy Services is a billion dollar oilfield services company with three main divisions: water services, rentals, and wellsite completions. They operate in every major shale play in the country, including the Marcellus/Utica. In 2017 Select bought out and merged in Rockwater Energy Solutions, a leading provider of comprehensive water management solutions to the North American shale companies and the only company that provides complementary chemistry products and expertise in connection with its water solutions (see 
Anti-fossil fuel fanatics attempting to ban natural gas extraction, the pipelines that flow it, and even end-use of natgas have blathered on for years that “
We’ve been saying the following until we’re blue (flame) in the face (pun intended): Natural gas is not a *bridge* to the future of energy, natural gas is THE DESTINATION. We have enough gas supplies for at least 100 years, likely much longer. Natgas is low emissions. It’s not harming Mom Earth. What’s not to love about extracting and BURNING natural gas? It seems others are now embracing this view. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal asks the question, if Warren Buffett is willing to invest $10 billion to help Occidental Petroleum buy Anadarko Petroleum, what does old Warren know that we don’t? Here’s the better question: What if renewables don’t pan out after all? What if renewables can’t supply all of our energy needs? Is that what old Warren is thinking?
One of the false allegations made against shale drilling is that it somehow pollutes the air–of particular concern near schools. A new independent two-year study commissioned by Range Resources at one of their drilling sites, located about a mile from a local school, thoroughly debunks that allegation. A first-of-its kind public health and long-term ambient air monitoring report (full copy below) provides analysis from nearly two years of continuous data from an unconventional Marcellus Shale well site nearby a high school and elementary school campus in Washington County, PA. The study found no health impacts from shale drilling.