Chesapeake & Southwestern Complete Merger; Now #1 U.S. Gas Driller

Move over EQT Corporation, there’s a new number one natural gas producer in the U.S. Yesterday, Chesapeake Energy announced that its buyout of and merger with Southwestern Energy in a $7.4 billion deal was completed. The newly merged company was renamed Expand Energy Corporation and will begin trading on the NASDAQ stock market today under…

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EQT Laying Off 15% of Workforce Following Equitrans Acquisition

EQT Corporation is now the #2 largest natural gas driller in the U.S. following the merger of Chesapeake Energy with Southwestern Energy to form Expand Energy Corporation (see today’s lead story). EQT took the opportunity yesterday, while everyone was focused on the shiny new object (Expand Energy), to file a Form 8-K with the SEC…

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Calpine Corp, Big Power Generator Using M-U Molecules, Gets New CEO

We spotted a press release about new leadership at the top of Calpine Corporation, one of the largest power producers in the U.S. with major assets in the upper East Coast area (fed by Marcellus/Utica molecules). The company’s CFO, Andrew Novotny, is becoming the CEO. Beyond the tie-in with the M-U because the company uses…

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Axis Merges with Brigade to Form #1 U.S. Well Services Co.

Two oilfield services companies—Axis Energy Services LLC and Brigade Energy Services LLC—jointly announced the closing of an agreement to merge and form the nation’s largest well servicing company. The new company will retain the Axis Energy name and will remain headquartered in Dallas, TX. According to Axis, the transaction creates the nation’s leading company for…

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Sale of 3rd & Final LDC from Dominion to Enbridge Now Complete

In September 2023, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion had agreed to sell the company’s remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt (see Dominion Energy Loses Mind – Sells Remaining LDC NatGas Businesses). The deal…

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PA DEP Issues Permits to Build Lycoming County Gathering Pipe

Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) wants to install a tiny 3.7-mile gathering pipeline in Lycoming County, PA, to connect several PGE wells to the Transco pipeline system, along with two 8-inch water pipelines of about the same length (see Lycoming County Gathering Pipe in the Crosshairs of Anti Groups). The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP)…

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Completed Maintenance on Transco Pipe Leads to Lower Gas Prices

While there are a number of interstate pipelines that crisscross the Marcellus/Utica, there is one pipeline system that is key to moving molecules out of our region to other markets, particularly in the southeast and the Gulf Coast: Transcontinental Gas Pipeline LLC (Transco), owned by Williams. Transco stretches from the Gulf Coast to New York…

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PA-Based Air Products Sells LNG Tech Biz to Honeywell for $1.8B

Air Products, headquartered in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania (Allentown area), once manufactured huge rocket-looking “production trains” or “heat exchangers,” which are pieces of equipment that turn natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG), in a plant in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The heat exchangers manufactured by Air Products in Wilkes-Barre were two-thirds of a football…

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Philly Shipyard Begins Work on 3 New LNG-Powered Containerships

Aloha Class vessel Daniel K Inouye. Matson, Inc. yesterday announced the start of construction on the first of three new “Aloha Class” containerships designed for its Hawaii and China-Long Beach Express (CLX) services. After a small ceremony at Philly Shipyard in Pennsylvania, the cutting of steel plates began, initiating the work to build the ships…

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Grid Operators Join Lawsuit Against Biden EPA Gas-Fired Plant Reg

The Bidenistas at the EPA attacked coal and gas-fired power plants in April, threatening to destabilize the existing electric power grid with new regulations (see EPA Rolls Out Final Regs Attacking Coal & Gas-Fired Power). Using 1,020 pages of new regulations, which will go into effect this year, all coal-fired plants that are slated to…

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M-U Rig Count Realigns @ 33; National Rig Count Drops 1 @ 587

Three weeks ago, MDN told you about a developing story of rig realignment in the Marcellus/Utica (see Rig Bloodbath Continues – Pennsylvania Loses 7 Rigs in 3 Weeks). As we reported, Pennsylvania was losing rigs, bleeding rigs, like crazy—four rigs gone in two weeks’ time. And West Virginia was gaining those lost rigs. Two weeks…

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3 More Drillers Dinged by PA DEP for Not Disclosing Frack Chemicals

According to Pennsylvania regulation 25 Pa. Code § 78a.122(b)(6)(iv), a drilling company must provide a list of the chemicals intentionally added to the stimulation [fracking] fluid by name and chemical abstract service (CAS) number in a Completion Report. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says three drillers, including EQT, Range Resources, and Greylock Energy,…

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History of 1st Marcellus Well Drilled by Range in Washington County

For years, MDN has told you that the very first Marcellus well to be drilled and fracked was done by Range Resources Corporation in Washington County, PA. Beyond that, we didn’t know much. Thanks to an article appearing in the Washington Observer-Reporter, we now know the full story—or at least a lot more of the…

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Reuters Says FERC Sides with Venture Global in Shafting LNG Customers

Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service in November 2023 (see Venture Global Gets FERC OK to Commission 3 Calcasieu Pass Trains). The other trains, 1-6, have been online for over two years! However, the entire facility is…

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U.S. Net Natural Gas Exports Flat in the First Half of 2024

click for larger version Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an interesting post about “net” natural gas exports, which is a number calculated by deducting both pipeline and LNG exports by incoming pipeline imports (from Canada) and any incoming LNG imports (to Boston). The EIA found that in the first half of…

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