An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal says there is a “split reality” emerging for U.S. shale drillers. Shale oil drillers are struggling to survive, while shale gas drillers, particularly in the Marcellus/Utica, are slowly seeing signs of financial recovery. The upshot is that you should consider investing in shale gas drillers (and not shale
Read More...Last week Pennsylvania issued 16 new shale well drilling permits, and West Virginia issued 7 new shale well permits. Ohio issued no new shale permits last week.This post appeared first on Marcellus Drilling News.
Read More...Looks like the rumors were true, at least one of them. Yesterday EQT announced it has cut a deal to buy Chevron’s considerable Appalachian assets for $735 million. The Reuters rumor from September said EQT had offered $750 million (see Sources: EQT Offering $750M for Chevron’s Marcellus/Utica Assets). Also yesterday, EQT floated up to 23
Read More...EQT announced yesterday it has closed on a deal to sell “certain non-strategic assets” to Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) for $125 million, plus another potential $20 million later on. MDN first told you about this deal on May 13 (see Diversified Buys 900 EQT Wells (67 Shale Wells) for $125M). This is the first
Read More...Last Friday, Oct. 18, was the 100th day since Toby and Derek Rice took over the leadership at EQT, the country’s largest natural gas-producing company. The Rice boys won a proxy fight in July to elect a new board (and themselves) to lead the company (see Rice Bros. Win Proxy War to Control EQT –
Read More...Donald M. “Blue” Jenkins Beauty (and truth) is in the eye of the beholder. During the proxy fight earlier this year 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 of effectively running the company. The Rice boys said
Read More...The Pittsburgh Business Times‘ ace report Paul Gough is reporting an exclusive: EQT is getting ready to fire (i.e. layoff) around 200 employees. “Multiple sources” have confirmed the plans to the PBT. Since the company employs around 800 employees, that represents 25% of the entire workforce. This comes on the heels of the company laying
Read More...In June MDN told you that the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Retirement System is not happy with their investment in EQT shares of stock, so they’re suing the company (see Mass. Retirement Fund Sues EQT for Plummeting Stock Price). They hope to turn the lawsuit into a class action on behalf of other shareholders. Now a group
Read More...Yesterday MDN told you that new EQT CEO Toby Rice is in the midst of conducting four “town hall” style meetings with landowners–two this week and two next week (see Road Trip! EQT CEO Toby Rice Talks to Landowners in Town Hall Mtgs). By all accounts, the first meeting (Wednesday night in Waynesburg, PA) was
Read More...Take note Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto: You can only crap on the shale industry for so long before it comes back to bite you on the backside. EQT CEO Toby Rice told a group of landowners Wednesday night that the EQT Foundation (EQT’s charitable giving arm), the third largest foundation by giving in Pittsburgh, is
Read More...After a bruising proxy fight, Toby and Derek Rice (formerly from Rice Energy) won control of EQT, the largest natural gas-producing company in the U.S. (see Rice Bros. Win Proxy War to Control EQT – Toby Rice New CEO). Toby Rice has been CEO for barely a month. He announced late last week that he
Read More...Toby Rice – New EQT CEO (photo credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Monumentally BIG NEWS! The Rice boys, Toby and Derek, have won the proxy fight to elect their candidates to the EQT board. In a joint announcement made this morning, preliminary results show the Rice boys prevailed in a huge upset (80% of the vote) to
Read More...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 100+ PA Landowners Sue EQT re Gas Storage Field Payments). That same group has just filed a request in U.S. District Court to upgrade the lawsuit to class action
Read More...LOLA Energy was birthed near the end of 2015, by former EQT executives using private equity money from Denham Capital (see New Marcellus/Utica Drilling Company is Born – LOLA Energy). In July 2017, Rice Energy (later sold to EQT) bought the assets of LOLA Energy for $180 million, over the objections of LOLA CEO Jim
Read More...Yesterday Toby and Derek Rice delivered a presentation to EQT investors in connection with EQT’s upcoming annual meeting of shareholders on July 10 (full copy below). The presentation and the accompanying press release take direct aim at EQT’s second quarter preliminary results and postulates that instead of a “free cash flow generating machine,” the final
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