Anadarko | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA
PA Supremes Rule Against AG Shapiro in Can of Worms Royalty Lawsuit
In May 2020 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging whether or not the state Attorney General’s office has the right to use a consumer protection law to prosecute companies like Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko over royalty payment shenanigans (see PA Supremes Hear Oral Arguments in Can of Worms Royalty Lawsuit). The law the AG’s office sought to use has never been used that way before. On Wednesday, some 10 months after hearing arguments, the PA Supremes issued their ruling–against the AG and in favor of Anadarko and Chesapeake.
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It’s time to revisit a long-festering royalty lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko Petroleum filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office. The case has been through several layers of courts and finally ended up at the PA Supreme Court last fall (see 
In December 2015, Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane (who later was convicted and did jail time) brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko accusing them of royalty fraud (see 
Anadarko Petroleum, as an independent company, is no more. The company has officially sold itself and is now merged into Occidental Petroleum in a cash, stock and assumption of debt deal worth $55 billion. At one point Chevron had a deal to buy Anadarko, but Anadarko left them at the altar, along with a $1 billion deal abortion payment (see 
Whew, that was close. We’ve had a concern that if Chevron ended up buying Anadarko Petroleum (for Anadarko’s Permian Basin oil assets), it might lead to Chevron pulling back from their drilling program in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
An interesting development in the bidding war to buy Anadarko Petroleum. Two weeks ago Chevron announced a deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum for $33 billion plus assuming outstanding debt, a deal worth $50 billion (see 
Less than two weeks ago Chevron announced a deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum for $33 billion plus assuming outstanding debt, a deal worth $50 billion (see 
Another truly huge merger/buyout was announced Friday when Chevron said it is buying Anadarko Petroleum for $33 billion. When you factor in Chevron assuming Anadarko’s debt, the total deal is valued at $50 billion, a number hard to wrap your brain around. The key question for us is: What does this mean for Chevron’s drilling program in the Marcellus/Utica?
We get tired of saying it, but perhaps we should never get tired of saying that according to the most reliable methods of tracking temperatures on earth (by satellite), THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING. The only way global warming alarmists get away with claiming the earth is heating up is by using doctored computer algorithms. The actual testing and measurement of temps doesn’t show we’re heating up! And yet the manipulators who persist in using scare tactics that mankind is somehow causing the earth to heat up catastrophically by burning fossil fuels and leaking methane into the atmosphere, have just claimed a couple of more scalps in their efforts to shut down the fossil fuel industry. A so-called church, the Unitarian Universalist Association (people who believe in everything, consequently they believe in nothing) bought $2,000 worth of Range Resources stock and proposed a resolution to all shareholders at the annual meeting that forces Range to publish a report on how evil the company is for causing global warming (i.e. produce a report on Range’s efforts to scale back methane emissions). The measure passed by 50.25%. A group called As You Sow bought Anadarko stock and floated a resolution instructing the company to produce a report on how mythical man-made global warming will affect the company financially as it will no doubt have to scale back its exploration and production. That resolution passed by 53%. These groups, with innocent-sounding names, are NOT innocent. They are far left, liberal groups that have snookered shareholders into voting against their own best interests by harming the very companies they invest in, forcing those companies, ultimately, to stop drilling. All in the name of “climate change” (i.e. global warming)…
A Bradford County, PA judge has turned down Chesapeake Energy’s attempt to wiggle out of a royalty lawsuit on a technicality. However, the judge also punted the case to a higher court to settle what he calls “novel questions of law”–rather than spending more time and money on such issues at the county court level. This is good news for landowners in Bradford County who have been shafted by Chesapeake’s royalty scheme to shift the cost of piping and processing to landowners by using inflated values for those services. In December 2015, Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane (now gone), brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see 
Yesterday we brought you the “Top 10” drillers in southwestern Pennsylvania, as ranked by the number of permits issued (see 
In May 2012 a water truck driver delivering water to an Anadarko Marcellus Shale well pad in Clinton County, PA missed a turnoff for the road he was supposed to take, at 2:30 am in the morning. A couple of miles later he crashed and tragically died because the road he was on was not marked well and not conducive to the truck he was driving. There was a sign warning the driver not to go beyond a certain point. The driver had previously–that night–already delivered to the well pad and successfully turned onto the road he was supposed to take. Why did he miss it the second time? His widow maintains that even though he worked for a subcontractor, Anadarko was the company in charge and should have had a light illuminating the “No Anadarko Traffic Beyond This Point” sign. So she sued Anadarko, and the subcontractor, for wrongful death. Lower courts threw out the lawsuit but a federal appeals court reinstated a civil suit against Anadarko (see