Rice Boys Goose EQT Board – Ask for April (not June) Annual Mtg
Earlier this month Toby and Derek Rice, formerly executives with Rice Energy (before it sold to EQT), launched a proxy war to nominate board members who will appoint Toby CEO of EQT (see Proxy War: Rice Brothers Say Top EQT Mgmt, Board Must Go). The Rice boys are goosing the EQT board, asking them to schedule the annual meeting (where a vote will be taken) in April and not two months later in June as currently planned.
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Utility company Consolidated Edison recently announced it will slap a moratorium on hooking up new customers for natural gas in Westchester County (NYC suburb) beginning March 15 (see 
Last week ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum announced a final investment decision (FID) to build Golden Pass LNG terminal, on the Texas side of the Sabine-Neches Waterway. That’s a stone’s throw from Cheneire Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal on the Louisiana side of the waterway. Marcellus/Utica gas flows to the Cheniere facility. Will it also flow to Exxon’s when it’s built?
It’s no secret that getting a gas pipeline project of any kind approved in New York State is an uphill battle because our governor, Andrew Cuomo, blocks all new pipelines in a bid to keep his left wing supporters happy. An important project from Williams, the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) which would beef up capacity along the Transco pipeline system going into New York City, is about to get two hearings with the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Two well permits awarded in Columbiana County (northern Utica); Westmoreland water authority will seek repayment from gas driller for additional water tests; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New report details record Texas oil boom in 2018; NATIONAL: Don’t expect many US LNG exporters to build without firm supply deals; It’s full speed ahead for U.S. natural gas exports; INTERNATIONAL: Is a natural gas cartel forming?; Here’s why Saudi Aramco may be coming to an oil field near you.
Yesterday MDN began our lead story about a big fine for Antero Resources by saying, “This has to be a record-high amount for a fine plus remediation work, at least in the Marcellus/Utica.” We humbly admit we were wrong. In checking our records, we found that in a similar case from 2014, Trans Energy paid even more, quite a bit more. We researched what this whole business is about, why Antero and others were fined, interviewing a top Antero official, and we now have a far better understanding of what happened and why.
In 2013 some 10,000 West Virginia landowners/rights owners filed a class action lawsuit against EQT over their practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks. The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November, but at the last minute, it didn’t. Word leaked that EQT had settled out of court (see 
It’s that time of year for energy companies to issue updates on just how much oil and gas they own in the ground, recoverable at current prices. Both CNX Resources and Range Resources, two major Marcellus/Utica producers, recently issued statements outlining their “proved reserves.” CNX has 7.9 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe) in proved reserves as of Dec. 31, 2018. Range Resources has 18.1 Tcfe in proved reserves.
A partisan left-wing group calling itself the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy along with another partisan left-wing group called the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) released a report last week that claims WV’s shale industry has “fallen short” in delivering on economic promises, and the way to fix it is to boost the severance tax from 5% to 10%! Yeah, they’re out of their collectivist minds.
Although Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) is facing serious delays and cost overruns mainly due to lawsuits brought by Big Green groups, the company is still committed to building the pipeline (see 
This has to be a record-high amount for a fine plus remediation work, at least in the Marcellus/Utica. Antero Resources has cut a deal with three government entities–the U.S. Dept. of Justice, federal Environmental Protection Agency, and West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection–to pay a $3.15 million fine and spend another $8 million to mitigate and restore 32 sites in West Virginia.