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Southwestern, Equinor Win Post-Production Deduction Lawsuit in WV
Just coming to light (for us) is a decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Dec. 1, a ruling on post-production deductions by drillers when calculating gas royalties “at the wellhead” in West Virginia. The drillers, in this case, were Southwestern Energy and Equinor (formerly known as Statoil). The drillers won the right to claim certain post-production deductions.
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Don’t you love playing a game with a child and part of the way through the game, the child simply changes the rules for how the game is played (particularly when they are losing)? That’s what comes to mind with the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) recent action in disallowing any pipeline bigger than 36 inches to use a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) to cross creeks, rivers, and wetlands. The move is meant to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 42-inch pipeline, from finishing its installation work (the pipeline is 92% complete).
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) had laid 30 miles of pipeline and had cut trees for 222 miles along the 600-mile route before Dominion decided last summer it no longer wanted to be in the interstate pipeline business, canceling ACP (see 
In early 2020 Pennsylvania raised $198.2 million from its version of a severance tax, called an impact fee, based on drilling activity from 2019, which was down from the previous year (see 
Anti-fossil fuel zealots including THE Delaware Riverkeeper are attempting to convince the Biden administration to block the now fully permitted and authorized LNG export terminal New Fortress plans to build on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River in Gibbstown. They’re hoping they can appeal to Biden’s parochial concerns for his home state of Delaware, hoping to scare an old man with dementia into blocking LNG ships from transiting the Delaware River by lying about safety issues.