EQT Accuses Fired Employees of Colluding with Rice Boys
We’re not quite sure what to make of this. In February, EQT filed lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and federal courts against two former employees it had fired, claiming the employees, before they were fired, had systematically copied confidential information from company computers and took it with them when they left (see EQT Claims 2 Fired Workers Stole Confidential Information). Now EQT is alleging the employees “stole” the information to help Toby and Derek Rice in their bid to take over EQT via a proxy war (see Proxy War: Rice Brothers Say Top EQT Mgmt, Board Must Go). That’s a serious charge.
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In February Pennsylvania State Sen. Lisa Baker introduced Senate Bill (SB) 305, which would make a proposed Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) frack ban officially a government “taking” under eminent domain (see 
Two weeks ago the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted a request to Kinder Morgan to “introduce feed gas, back-up fuel, and BOG fuel” to the first of what will be 10 production units at its Elba Island, Georgia LNG export facility (see 
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) will hold a public hearing on April 15 to consider draft permits the agency has floated to allow two frack wastewater injection wells (Class II) in Coshocton County to be reclassified as Class I wells, allowing them to accept waste other than frack waste.
We’re a tad confused, but only a tad. Three weeks ago MDN brought you the news that construction has begun to build the 60-mile Risberg Pipeline from Crawford County, PA into Erie County, PA, and from there into Ashtabula County, OH (see 
Reuters is reporting that the price of natural gas selling at the Waha Hub in the Permian Basin (West Texas) averaged just $0.12 (12 cents) per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) yesterday, a new record low. But wait! MDN reported last November the price at Waha had hit minus 1 cent/Mcf–people paying someone else to take their gas (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Gov. Wolf is confident he has the votes for gas tax, but Republicans beg to differ; Philadelphia Energy Solutions executives depart amid financial woes; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Activist judge orders Wyoming drilling halted on climate change issues; Natgas prices in the Pacific NW reached equivalent of $1,000 for a barrel of crude oil; NATIONAL: EIA projects U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions will remain near current level through 2050; March U.S. natural gas prices ‘out like a lamb’; Bernie Sanders pledges to ban ‘fracking’ if elected president in 2020; Research shows mounting problems with Green New Deal’s energy plan; INTERNATIONAL: Saudi Aramco to begin new phase of shale gas development next year.
Last December a federal judge in New Jersey upheld eminent domain power for PennEast Pipeline for ALL of NJ, where there are 136 holdout landowners who have refused to allow PennEast surveyors on their property (see 
The company we call MarkWest Energy is technically MPLX, renamed after MarkWest was bought out and merged into Marathon Petroleum in December 2015 (see 
Yesterday IHS Markit released a study commissioned by Shale Crescent USA and JobsOhio that finds natural gas produced in the tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will be 45% of the nation’s production by 2040, up from 31% this year. This is truly big news with lots of ramifications.
Anti-fossil fuelers really have no shame. We recently spotted an article that purports to lay out the case, chapter and verse, for how “frackers” are engaging in “accounting shenanigans” covering up true reserve estimates and depreciation expenses. In other words, they’re cooking the books, lying to investors. And ultimately America’s fracking boom as been “a bust.” Nonsense.