Bradford Drilling Sues Partner Norse Energy for No Drilling
Norse Energy Corp, the U.S. subsidiary of the Norwegian energy company, owns leases for 180,000 net acres in New York State, 130,000 of those acres being in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. Norse bet the farm on New York allowing shale gas drilling long before now, and they lost (NY is still months, if not years away from allowing shale gas drilling). Norse has put their New York acreage on the auction block, looking for another company to buy it.
In the meantime, one of Norse’s drilling partners is suing them for lack of drilling according to their agreement. That agreement had nothing to do with shale gas, but instead was drilling in the Herkimer formation, a limestone-type layer in central New York. Norse seems to indicate they may restart Herkimer drilling at some point. From the Norse press release: