Feds Clear Chesapeake & Encana in Collusion Case, Michigan Next?
An update on the Chesapeake/Encana “collusion” story in Michigan. Two years ago Reuters accused Chessy and Encana of colluding to keep prices low for Michigan state oil and gas leases coming up for auction (see Did Reuters Break the Law with Latest Chesapeake Story?). Either a low-life snitch gave Reuters private emails from the companies or Reuters engaged in breaking and entering, a la Watergate style, to get access to those emails. Either way, the emails didn’t really show anything damning. However, both the feds and the state of Michigan launched years-long, anal exam-type investigations. In March of this year the Michigan Attorney General decided to press charges (see Reuters Smiles: MI Criminal Court to Charge Chesapeake & Encana).
However, the feds have just sent a letter to Chessy and Encana exonerating them from any wrongdoing. Since “more often than not” the feds and the state attorneys reach the same conclusion, it’s quite possible that Michigan will drop its criminal case as early as next week…
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On Friday two major stories developed involving Norse Energy. You may recall Norwegian-based Norse Energy rolled the dice and placed all their bets on shale drilling in New York State, leasing some 180,000 acres, of which 130,000 acres are in the Marcellus and/or Utica Shale region. Never in their wildest dreams did Norse believe it would take six years or more for the state to allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Things started to go downhill for Norse when landowners sued to say Norse did not have the right to continue the leases indefinitely (beyond five years) because of New York’s tardiness in approving fracking (see 
Apparently Dr. Nirav Shah, State Health Commissioner in New York, is tired of being Andrew Cuomo’s tool–Andy’s whipping boy. For more than a year Cuomo has been able to hide behind an unfinished so-called public health review of proposed new fracking rules, proposed by the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). In what can only be called a conspiracy, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens asked Shah for a review of the SGEIS with an eye to how shale drilling may (or may not) affect this nebulous concept called “the public health.” It’s now obvious that both Martens and Cuomo had set up Shah as the fall guy, requesting (we suspect) that Shah intentionally delay his findings. Shah has been carrying their water for more than a year now. Recently Norse Energy and the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York sued Cuomo, Martens and Shah to force them to finish the health review and release the new drilling regs (see 
Chesapeake Energy continues to find itself under the metaphorical gun with respect to royalty payments in Pennsylvania. The PA legislature is considering a bill (HB 1684) that would plug a legal loophole and require Chesapeake and other drillers to pay landowners a 12.5% minimum royalty regardless of post-production costs (see 
Yesterday MDN told you about New York’s shameful Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, had filed to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York that seeks to have the courts force Gov. Cuomo and his lieutenants to do their job and release new drilling regulations (see