Last summer, MDN brought you the news about a lawsuit against Diversified Energy and EQT over the issue of old and “abandoned” wells in West Virginia (see Big Green Uses WV Landowners to Sue EQT, Diversified re Old Wells). In June 2018, MDN exclusively brought our readers the news that Diversified Gas & Oil (now called Diversified Energy) had purchased EQT Corporation’s Huron Shale assets, with a bunch of conventional wells, in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia for $575 million (see Diversified Gas & Oil Adds to Conventional Assets in KY, VA, WV). Several WV landowners, prompted (and supported) by Big Green groups, sued the EQT and Diversified last July, alleging the wells no longer produce and (under law) must be plugged. The new news is that a federal judge in WV ruled yesterday that a proposed class action by the landowners against the companies can proceed.
