Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Olympus/Huntley & Huntley | Pennsylvania
Protesting Antis Allowed to Attend Plum, PA Private Shale Meeting
Shale driller Huntley & Huntley (H&H), headquartered in Monroeville (Allegheny County), PA, organized a private meeting last night in Plum, PA for “officials from local municipalities, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the oil and gas industry.” The meeting was an effort at good communication, so local officials know what is and is not allowed, and who regulates what, when it comes to shale drilling. Of course anti-drillers got wind of the meeting and pitched a fit until H&H opened up the meeting to let them attend.
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A grandmother concerned that if Range Resources were to build a well pad three-fourths of a mile from her granddaughter’s school (in Washington County, PA) instead of building it a full mile from the school, tried to gain legal standing to challenge a permit granted to Range by Mount Pleasant Township. Grandma says her granddaughter has a sensitivity to benzene fumes. Yesterday a Commonwealth Court panel ruled she does NOT have legal standing to challenge the permit.
A West Virginia Circuit Court case in September 2017, Crowder and Wentz v EQT, found in favor of surface landowners ruling that EQT did not have the right to extend underground shale wells to adjacent properties where EQT also owned the mineral rights (see 
Three families who lived near a former drill site and frack wastewater impoundment in Washington County, PA sued Range Resources in May 2012 claiming the air they breathe and the water they drink had been contaminated by Range’s operations at the site (see 
Yesterday Toby and Derek Rice issued another (new) letter to EQT shareholders in the quest to make a case that the existing EQT board and management must be thrown out. A few hours later EQT responded with its own letter to shareholders. Here’s the latest in the proxy war to control EQT.
It’s hard enough for drillers to get permits town by town in Pennsylvania, where the standards are all different thanks to the seven selfish towns that appealed the Act 13 law passed in 2012 (see 
Antero Resources sued EnerQuest Oil & Gas in a Texas court last year claiming EnerQuest had solicited and received trade secrets for a pair of landmen who live and work in Texas. A lower court dismissed the lawsuit based on a technicality (because the solicitation from EnerQuest came via email), claiming Texas does not have jurisdiction over the case. Antero disagrees and has just asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case.
Pennsylvania Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, and the anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, continue their tag-team effort to criminalize and humiliate Range Resources. Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see 
ExxonMobil recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to help fund both operations to the tune of $100 million over the next 10 years, looking to bring biofuels and carbon capture and storage to commercial scale across the transportation, power generation and industrial sectors. That is, to bring to market new tech that lowers carbon dioxide emissions. All in the name of stopping non-existent, man-made global warming.
On Monday Toby and Derek Rice–the Rice brothers (formerly owners of Rice Energy that sold itself to EQT in 2017) sent an open letter to EQT shareholders and a “white” proxy card, asking shareholders to vote for the Rices’ picks as board members (see 
Range Resources released its first-ever Corporate Sustainability Report earlier this week. The report reviews Range’s accomplishments at reducing so-called greenhouse gases (methane emissions) over the past 10 years. However, the big news contained in the report is that Range is committing to the goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. Someday. In the future. The report and the goal of zero emissions comes in response to pressure last year from a wacko leftist group that floated a shareholder resolution that almost passed.
Last November the judges in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court issued a ruling in favor of Penn Township (Westmoreland County) granting “special exception” permits to Apex Energy, allowing them to drill four shale wells (see 
Diversified Gas & Oil owns close to 3 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. In March Diversified announced it had cut a deal to buy 107 operating shale wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for $400 million from HG Energy II (see