WV Gov. Justice’s Top Adviser Bray Cary Leaving EQT Board in July
Bray Cary, the EQT board member who refused to leave the administration of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice even though many said he had a conflict of interest by staying, is finally leaving the EQT board in July. We first told you about Cary’s exit last week (see EQT Issues List of Board Nominees; Adopts Universal Proxy Card). Cary had a few comments for the media about his departure.
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The so-called trade war with China has just been ratcheted up a notch–by China. In a move to cut off their own nose to spite their face, the Chinese have hiked tariffs on LNG imports coming into their country from the United States–from a 10% tax to a 25% tax. Given only two LNG cargoes from the U.S. have landed in China this year, we suspect there won’t be any more LNG shipments from us to them for the foreseeable future. Depending on who you talk to, this is either no big deal, or a complete economic disaster for our shale gas industry.
Several so-called environmental groups, including one calling itself the Sane Energy Project, converged on Albany, NY yesterday to protest two new natural gas pipeline projects. How many committed, dedicated, climate warriors showed up from these “several” groups? Thousands? Hundreds? How about two dozen. Nobody would have noticed the protest except sycophantic media outlets arrived to plaster the event all over the airwaves (and newsprint). Rather disheartening is that an 11-year-old boy who’s been brainwashed was among the protesters. Of course the media loved it.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Natural gas facility restrictions, renovation projects top Longmeadow Town Meeting warrant; Gulf Coast Express set to reshuffle some Permian gas outflows; NATIONAL: Greenhouse deception (video); The new green serfdom; INTERNATIONAL: Fabian Cancellara says criticism of Ineos cycling sponsorship ‘not fair’; Shale industry to be profitable in 2019 – IEA.
Is Summit Midstream teeing up their Marcellus pipeline gathering system for a sale? Late last week Summit Midstream, which has a meaningful presence in the Marcellus/Utica region, released its first quarter 2019 numbers and held a conference call to discuss the company’s performance. As was the case for fourth quarter and full year 2018 (see 
A landowner in Jessup Borough (Lackawanna County, PA, near Scranton) has filed a lawsuit against the Borough Council as a whole (and the individuals who serve on it), claiming they rezoned the landowner’s property, cutting them out of millions of dollars, as retribution because the landowner had the audacity to sell property to the Marcellus gas-fired Lackawanna Energy Center (LEC) power plant.
TransCanada, which recently changed its name to TC Energy, is on a mission to sell more natural gas produced in Western Canada to New England and the East Coast of Canada. TC Energy’s Mainline pipeline system, that pretty much spans the continent, has just won its third rate cut by the Canadian National Energy Board (NEB), making Western Canadian gas that much cheaper to cart over 1,000 miles away to markets in the east.
Last week the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held an informational meeting to hear from the regulated community, including the shale industry, on their experiences with Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) permit review processes. By all accounts legislators (and the DEP) got an earful.
Here’s a cool story: Energy Transfer, the company building the Mariner East 2 Pipeline in Pennsylvania, has just committed to funding the Pennsylvania Special Olympics to the tune of $450,000 over the next three years. MDN editor Jim Willis’ wife works with special needs kids, so he has a soft spot for programs like Special Olympics. Jim thought: “Hey, this is a good news story. Surely someone in the media will have picked up the Special Olympics press release by now and published an article about this, right?” Nope. Total media blackout. We couldn’t find a single news outlet that has covered this news, now four days old.
We haven’t written about Weatherford International, the world’s fourth largest oilfield services (OFS) company, since last December when the New York Stock Exchange threatened to de-list their stock (see 
Antis pinned their hopes that they could get the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for Dominion to build a couple of compressor stations in upstate New York, thereby forcing FERC to consider mythical man-made global warming in ALL pipeline decisions. The case had the makings of being a “landmark” case. Yesterday antis lost their landmark case when the court ruled the party bringing the lawsuit, Otsego 2000, didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
Hey Westchester County, NY: You have a model to look at for your own moratorium on (blocking of) new natural gas customers. It’s located upstate, in Lansing, NY, just outside of college town Ithaca. The local utility (NYSEG) wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natgas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
Another day, another episode of the ongoing soap opera that is the power struggle to retain (or take over) control of the country’s largest natural gas producer: EQT. Yesterday we told you about current CEO Rob McNally’s bold and gutsy move in adopting a “universal proxy” and about going on offense with a scorching letter written to Toby Rice (see 
Several members of the Marcellus Shale industry spoke at a meeting of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce yesterday, including MDN friend George Stark from Cabot Oil & Gas. George is director of external affairs. At the meeting he said the Marcellus industry has made tremendous strides in the last 10 years and will be around for decades to come. He said, “It’s booming in our area.” George also said Cabot is having trouble filling vacant jobs.