Gulfport Energy Sues Barnesville, OH for Access to Water in Reservoir
A legal battle is shaping up in Belmont County, OH–in and around Barnesville. Way back in 2012, Gulfport Energy signed a contract with Barnesville to buy water from the Slope Creek Reservoir for 1 penny per gallon. Not long after, the Village of Barnesville (which controls the reservoir) signed a lease with Antero Resources for a sizable sum (see Barnesville, OH Signs Lease with Antero, Receives $6M). Antero also snapped up more acreage in the area (see Antero Offers Barnesville, OH Residents $5,700/Acre 20% Royalties). Gulfport and Antero reached a “mutual development agreement” in June and now Gulfport wants to start drilling in the area–but Barnesville is saying the reservoir is too low because other drillers (Antero?) have drawn it down. So Barnesville won’t let Gulfport, which has its own contract, to access water in the reservoir. Gulfport has just sued the Village to gain access…
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We’ve commented before on the lawless tendencies of anti-drillers, particularly in Ohio where, when they lose a court case, they declare the government is illegitimate (see 
THE Delaware Riverkeeper (Maya van Rossum) and the Clean Air Council, both located in the orbit of Philadelphia, have gone all the way to the opposite side of the state to meddle and cause mischief (see 
On March 3, a federal judge awarded a Tyler County, WV mineral owner $4.8 million in present and future royalties (plus interest) as damages in a dispute involving the operator’s failure to follow through on some unusually generous lease terms. The operator, Cunningham Energy LLC of Charleston, WV, had promised to horizontally drill eight wells to and through the Marcellus Shale formation within three years, but was unable to do so–largely because the leaseholds were far too small to develop as stand-alone units, and the surrounding lands turned out to be already under lease to other drillers…
PennFuture, the anti-drilling organization that has produced three top lieutenants in the PA Gov. Tom Wolf administration (see Ripping the Face off PennFuture & It’s Former Employees), frequently uses the court system in its attempt to slow or stop the Marcellus industry. One such case was a lawsuit PennFuture filed against Ultra Resources in 2011. Ultra had eight compressor stations scattered across Tioga and Potter counties–all of them many miles apart from each other. PennFuture tried to make the legal argument that all of the compressor stations should be combined together and treated as a single entity for the purposes of the federal Clean Air Act, which would have resulted in either very expensive equipment to reduce each facility’s nitrgen oxide (NOx) output, or perhaps closed some of them down to make the combined total come in under a certain threshold. PennFuture tried to say the eight facilities are “adjacent” for the purpose of the Clean Air Act. Ultra argued adjacent means “next to,” as in sharing a border. It all boils down to what the definition of adjacent means. Earlier this week U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Middle District ruled in favor of Ultra and against PennFuture…