When EQT CEO Toby Rice first took the stage to give the keynote address at Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia Conference & Expo, he had two simple words to tell the audience:

“Wake up!”

Energy production under the Biden administration has increased to 30 MMboe/d, Rice said, more than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined.

But in the face of growing opposition to fossil fuels, fewer pipelines being built and rising emissions, production has begun to flatten.

Rice urged the audience to heed his advice and recognize the constraints being placed on the industry.

“Americans, I think, are really starting to feel the impacts of the pushback on letting traditional energy get developed,” Rice said. “2018 is where we stopped making progress and we started going backwards… this is when the anti-pipeline movement was started in this country.”

The anti-pipeline movement has hindered the ability to provide cleaner, more affordable and reliable energy to customers, Rice said.

Rice added that resistance to the development of energy via hydrocarbons has begun to cripple energy security, causing widespread inflation that increased energy prices by 35% and caused energy poverty to rise both globally and in the U.S.

Currently, U.S. energy security includes solar and wind, but Rice doesn’t find the intermittent forms of energy suitable.

“Grid security in every single region of this country is shrinking over time,” Rice said.  

“People will talk about the massive efficiency gains in solar, the massive efficiency gains in wind, and they’ll show you the massive penetration of energy that’s being created by those forms of energy,” said Rice. But solar and wind’s impact is “not even close to the impact that U.S. shale gas has made.”

"Not even close. Shale gas is orders of magnitude greater impact than any other energy producing technology," he said.

Energy demand has increased 55% in the U.S. and 65% globally, and with that comes emissions concerns.

But Rice said the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) mandates to address emissions, such as the Clean Power Plan 2.0 calling for 90% of the industry’s power generators to have to capture CO2, are impractical.

“Does that mean those power plants shut down? No, of course not,” Rice said. “What that means is they’re going to get fined and our electricity bills are going to go up 200%, 300% or 400%. That’s what’s going to happen.”

The solution is natural gas, Rice said.

“Twenty years ago we found ourselves in a crisis. We found ourselves in the U.S. being energy dependent and it was only getting worse. What happened in 2008? We cracked the code on shale at scale and transformed America into an energy powerhouse allowing us to get our energy independence.”

Natural gas provides energy security to the U.S. while also lowering global emissions and keeping energy affordable.

“Four countries control two-thirds of the world’s gas—Russia, Iran, Qatar and the U.S. Which country should take on running energy security around the world? The world’s energy security is our security,” Rice said.

And, Rice warned it could be just a matter of time before for chaos in energy security elsewhere “trickles down to the U.S.”

Over the past 20 years, the rig count has fallen, while production has risen significantly. When looking at the efficiency of U.S. gas and the amount of production per rig, you will see an over 25-fold increase in productivity per rig, Rice said.

“You want to bet on an energy solution that is dependent on technology that will have massive efficiency improvements over time. [LNG] is what’s putting out these hockey stick type improvements,” Rice told the audience.

But “wake up,” is not just to open up the audience’s eyes, Rice said. It’s a rallying cry, he said.

“‘Drill, baby, drill’ was a huge rally cry back in 2008 when we were working to find and gain our energy independence. We’re in a different world now, and it’s not about drilling, it’s about ‘Build, baby, build.’ We have to get more pipelines to create outlets and energy infrastructure so that we can bring this energy to consumers.”

American energy can address the global energy poverty affecting 3 billion people, Rice said.  

“It’s our job as an industry to provide solutions. And our solution is very simple. You want to fix these issues, unleash American energy. You want to fix emissions, unleash American energy. You want to fix energy bills, unleash American energy.”

To truly unleash American energy, regulatory environment is need to allow  energy producers to offer solutions that are big, bold and, more importantly, proven, Rice said.

“If you think it's hard to build a pipeline, try building a transmission line,” he said. “If you think it's hard to build a five-acre oil and gas location, try building a 5,000-acre solar facility or wind farm. It's not just hard for us. It's getting hard for anybody to get things built and we got to get back to a place to get things built.”

Rice said politics needs to take a backseat to market forces to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy gets to consumers. 

“We need to get out of our own way and get back to a place where we can actually get things built in this country.”

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