Follow the Molecule
From an Appalachian wellhead to the world William Chastka, Senior Business Specialist
TRUST
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TEAMWORK
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HEART
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EVOLUTION
October 21, 2026
Meet your presenter Will Chastka, Senior Business Specialist, EQT •
12 years of experience in the oil and natural gas industry, spanning engineering, operations, infrastructure and business analytics.
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DJ for 50+ weddings and events since 2014 (reading a dance floor is real-time data analysis, either way, read the energy)
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2026, learning to kitesurf (applied fluid dynamics, with consequences)
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30+ countries and conversational Spanish
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Favorite Song: Empire Ants by Gorillaz
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Most of us are not Beethoven M Y PAT H
2010 pivot: Heard the Marcellus was the next big thing. Switched from chemical engineering to petroleum at Penn State.
2012-2014
2014-2016
2016-2017
2017-2019
2019-present
National Fuel
Rex Energy
UGI
Pitt MBA
EQT
Gas storage engineering
Marcellus and Utica production engineering
System planning – build out and reinforcement of hydraulic systems
Capital, returns, data
Commodities data analytics, trading side
Reservoirs as batteries
Wells, tubing placements, artificial lift
Now: another energy renaissance (on Demand Side)
Where gas is priced
2021-2023 Carnegie Mellon MS, Business Analytics Concurrent with work
We are not all Beethoven. Most of your careers will evolve from where you start, and you picked a great place to start.
About EQT
America’s Leading Natural Gas Company
America’s Premier Natural Gas Company (Integrated) NEPA
~125k core net acres
OH
~85k core net acres
SWPA
~565k core net acres
WV
EQT AT A GLANCE (NYSE: EQT)
7.5 billion
Core net acres – the most in Appalachia
10.5 billion
Cubic feet of natural gas produced daily
Integrated Natural Gas Company of scale in America
Cubic feet of natural gas gathered daily
4,000
Net Zero
3,700
Horizontal wells
Scope 1 & 2 GHG Upstream Emissions
Pipeline miles
~700
>1,500
986,000
~345k core net acres
> 1.1 million
The Only
Well pads
Employees of every skill set
Horsepower of active compression horsepower
Critical infrastructure spanning the largest Appalachian resource base
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Commodities Markets, Price Factors and Market Fundamentals
Same word, two different fuels B E F O R E W E S TA RT
GASOLINE
N AT U R A L G A S
• A liquid refined from crude oil
• A gas, mostly methane, produced from wells
• Sold by the gallon • Used in cars and trucks • The gas station fuel
• Sold by volume (Mcf) or energy (MMBtu) • Used to heat homes, make electricity, and feed industry and LNG exports • Rarely sold at the pump
When I say gas, I mean natural gas. Gasoline is what goes in your car.
Two ways to count natural gas B E F O R E W E S TA RT
W H AT O N E U N I T I S W O RT H
Mcf = 1,000 cubic feet. This is volume. Picture a room 10 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet tall full of gas. MMBtu = 1,000,000 Btu. This is energy. One Btu is the heat needed to warm one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Why MM? M is the Roman numeral for thousand, so MM is thousandthousand, a million.
1 Mcf in MMBtu 1,000 cubic feet x 1,036 Btu per cubic foot = 1,036,000 Btu = 1.036 MMBtu. Rule of thumb: 1 Mcf is about 1 MMBtu.
1 MMBtu in gasoline 1 MMBtu divided by 120,214 Btu per gallon of gasoline = about 8.3 gallons of gasoline energy.
1 MMBtu in electricity 1 MMBtu divided by 3,412 Btu per kilowatt-hour = about 293 kWh of electricity.
US average heat contents, EIA. Actual values vary by location.
Two questions before we look at any prices B E F O R E W E S TA RT
QUESTION 1
QUESTION 2
What factors determine the price of natural gas?
What price does Appalachian gas sell for today? Hint: it’s recently been cheaper than this
Write down your answers. We will come back to both.
What moves energy prices? THE PRICE DRIVERS
Four forces set the price of natural gas
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Supply and demand
Geopolitics
Weather
Wars, sanctions, and production cuts reshape supply.
Seasonal heating and cooling demand moves quickly.
Economic growth
Example: Russia-Ukraine conflict and Iran embargoes.
Example: a polar vortex pushed prices to $15/MMBtu.
Tight supply meets high demand and prices spike.
Example: a hurricane shuts down Gulf production.
GDP growth drives commodity demand.
Example: strong manufacturing lifts prices.
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Question 1: supply, demand, and what’s leftover QUESTION 1 ANSWER
S U P P LY
DEMAND
• US dry gas production • Imports from Canada
• Power generation • LNG • Winter heating • AI Industry • Exports: Mexico by pipe, LNG by ship
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STORAGE CHANGE
Supply minus demand = weekly change in national storage. A build means surplus. A draw means shortfall. The EIA reports it every Thursday.
SUMMER POWER BURN
S I G N A L S YO U W I L L L E A R N T O R E A D
Hot weather means more A/C, more gas burned in power plants, bigger demand swings.
Rig count, horizontal vs. vertical wells, new drills vs. workovers, completion intensity.
Where the leftover waits: three kinds of storage QUESTION 1 ANSWER
Conventional storage
Salt caverns
LNG tanks
• Depleted gas reservoirs
• Caverns made by dissolving underground salt with water
• Natural gas chilled to about -162 C (-260 F)
• Smaller but fast
• Held as a liquid in insulated tanks
• Big and slow • Fills in summer, drains in winter
• Can inject and withdraw quickly when prices move
Storage is the shock absorber: it fills when supply beats demand and drains when demand wins.
Same commodity, different locations, different prices R E A L P R I C I N G D ATA
Appalachian gas has consistently traded below the Henry Hub benchmark, though both prices move together. Location changes the price of the same molecule.
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Question 2 answer: two prices, one molecule W H AT O U R G A S S E L L S F O R
LO C A L B A S I N ( A P PA L A C H I A )
H E N RY H U B ( N AT I O N A L B E N C H M A R K )
about $1.00 per MMBtu
about $2.96 per MMBtu
Eastern Gas South cash, Oct 5, 2026
Spot, Oct 5, 2026
A Costco hot dog and soda combo costs $1.50. One MMBtu of Appalachian gas recently sold for less than that. A $1.50 Costco combo buys 1.5 MMBtu at about $1.00 Appalachian cash, which is about 12.5 gallons of gasoline energy.
A gallon of gasoline at $4.70 (PA pump price). The same energy in natural gas costs about 12 cents at the local basin price and about 36 cents at Henry Hub. Wholesale natural gas versus retail gasoline (taxes, refining, delivery). Sources: Marcellus Drilling News, Oct 6, 2026; EIA heat contents.
Sell everything at local basis, and a great well still is not enough THE 2.50 TEST
I L LU S T R AT I V E
F U L L - C YC L E B R E A K E V E N
Period
NYMEX
Tetco M2 basis
Tetco M2 price
2026 year to date
$3.52
-$0.94
about $2.57
Balance of 2026
$3.25
-$0.82
about $2.43
about $2.55 At $2.50 the average remaining Marcellus well pays for itself but does not earn its full return.
Average for 2026: about $2.50
You can engineer a great well. If your company sells at local basis, it does not matter. Illustrative: all gas sold at the Tetco M2 index. A company's actual realized price depends on hedges, firm transport, and differentials.
Tetco M2 price = NYMEX plus M2 basis. Data as of Oct 16, 2026.
Same molecule, overseas prices G LO B A L L N G – P u t i t o n a B o a t
DECEMBER 2026 FORWARD
JKM (Dec)
$26.53 vs. Henry Hub (NYMEX Dec)
$3.39 = ~$23.14 spread (~7.8x) The spread must pay for liquefaction, shipping, and regasification.
Going international: gas to liquid G LO B A L L N G
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Pipe
Liquefy
Ship
Regasify
Pipe the gas to a Gulf Coast terminal.
Chill to about -162 C (-260 F, about 111 K), shrinking the volume about 600 times.
A new 174,000 cubic meter LNG carrier costs about $250 million.
Turn it back into gas at the destination.
The spread between Asia and Henry Hub has to pay for all four steps.
Commodity markets touch daily life W H Y T H I S M AT T E R S
Electricity bills Partly tied to local gas and power costs, not only Henry Hub. FOR YOUR CAREER AND INVESTING
Plastic products Tied to ethane and propane prices.
Your Future Cheap energy drives growth and job creation EQT Corp. | GRO Engineering Seminar
This is why you should care about commodity markets.
Your next 12-18 months W H AT T O D O N E X T
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02
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Internships
Skills to start now
Networking
Upstream, midstream, LNG, trading/analytics.
AI prompting and coding (BYO software)
Ask engineers and commercial people:
Read the EIA weekly storage report.
"In what ways does your work meet the commodity market?"
Apply to more than one segment.
K E Y TA K E AWAY S
What to remember 01
Natural gas is not gasoline. Mcf is volume; MMBtu is energy.
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Our gas has two prices: local basin and Henry Hub. This fall local basin was cheaper than a Costco hot dog. Realized price is the scoreboard.
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Storage sets the price. The weekly change shows whether the market is short or long.
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My career was windy and yours will be too. The industry choice is solid. Follow the molecule.
Questions? A D D C ON TAC T O R QR
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