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Hilcorp Lawrence County, PA Forced Pooling Case Update

updateToday we give you an update about the ongoing forced pooling case by Hilcorp in Lawrence County, PA (see Hilcorp Uses PA Forced Pooling Law Against Lawrence Cty Landowner). We have new information, we break the issue down and explain it in detail, and we offer our own opinion on potential outcomes…
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Glimmer of Hope that PA Won’t Enact Severance Tax This Year

Perhaps all is not lost in PA with regard to an insane severance tax on Marcellus Shale drilling. On Friday we reported that PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s spokesperson seemed to be waffling about whether or not Gov. Corbett would consider or even support a severance tax, something he’s been opposed to for over three years (see Is PA Gov Corbett Considering a Severance Tax?!). That report caused us some angst. However, also last week, the highest ranking Republican in the House said “no” to a severance tax for this year’s budget…
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Michigan AG Continues Case Against Chesapeake for Lease Collusion

Apparently Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette wants his pound of flesh out of Chesapeake Energy. You may recall the case of Chesapeake and Encana being accused of colluding to suppress the price of land being auctioned for drilling leases in Michigan. Reuters claimed private, internal company emails with possibly damning information somehow landed in their lap from the email fairy (see Did Reuters Break the Law with Latest Chesapeake Story?)…
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Oops, I Did it Again: Another Howarth Sham Paper on Evil Methane

Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology (not geology) is a self-proclaimed expert on shale drilling and its impact on Mother Earth. Howarth is a man-causes-global-warming true believer, along with his sidekick Tony Infraffea (also a Cornell prof). Both together have issued a string of “research reports” saying outrageously silly things like burning natural gas is worse for the environment than burning coal. Their research is constantly refuted by real experts, but that doesn’t keep Howarth from attempting to peddle his theories. And “oops, I did it again”–there goes Howarth with another “natural gas is worse that your darkest nightmare” study, just published in yet another obscure so-called “peer reviewed” journal…
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Cabot Presentation in Boston Yields Some Interesting Tidbits

There are a variety of conferences where drillers “pitch” investors on how great their company is, and the enormous promise of how well it will do in the future (hint hint–buy our stock and drive the price up). Citibank hosts a variety of these conferences. One of them was last week and Cabot Oil & Gas was there to present. We got a copy of their presentation, which has a lot of great information. If you want to know what a company is planning, and where they’ve been recently, you could do worse that pour over these investor conference presentations. Below we’ve embedded the Cabot presentation along with a list of our favorite slides…
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