Beck Energy Sues OH Attorneys for Lease “Interference”
An interesting court case that landowners in Monroe County, OH with old (30 year-old) non-Utica gas leases will be interested in following. Beck Energy holds many of those old leases (originally signed for an average $50/acre) which allows them to drill vertically into the Clinton sandstone for natural gas. However, the old leases prevent landowners from signing new leases (at much higher signing bonuses) to allow Utica Shale drilling. Apparently some enterprising attorneys have taken up the cause by shopping (i.e. advertising) for plaintiffs and Beck is none to happy about it. Beck has filed a lawsuit against the attorneys and their law firms to stop them from making mischief with “their” leases.
After reading the details of whose done what to whom (below), it seems to MDN no one will come out of this one smelling clean…
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A question MDN is frequently asked… Q: When will the issue of fracking in New York State really and truly be decided–and by whom? A: June 2014, by the NY Court of Appeals. “Not by Gov. Cuomo?” you ask. Nope. He’ll come around, eventually. The real issue has always been whether or not entire towns can ban fracking based on the vote of 3 or 4 people who sit on a town board–a vote that denies every citizen in that town their Constitutional private property rights. Two cases now before the New York Court of Appeals will decide the issue once and for all.
This is not the kind of story we enjoy sharing with you. Hilcorp, a major driller in the Utica and Marcellus Shale, has decided to take what we consider “the low road” and is using a 1961 Pennsylvania law to sue a landowner to allow them to drill under their property. It’s called “forced pooling,” “compulsory integration,” and a variety of other terms. MDN does not support it. Our argument is simple: My neighbor should not have the right to tell me I can’t drill on and under my land, and I should not have the right to force it on my neighbor if they don’t want it. We believe it’s the only defensible position in the drilling debate.
MDN became aware that newly nominated (and currently Acting) Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, Chris Abruzzo, would be attending Shale Insight 2013. So we requested an interview with the Secretary, and he obliged! To our knowledge, we were the only media interview he granted during a brief walking around the show visit on Wednesday.
Chesapeake Energy recently settled a lawsuit with Pennsylvania landowners in which they agree to pay (a pitifully small) $7.5 million to landowners after shorting them on royalty payments (see 
MDN has made it plain we believe New York State Dept. of Health Commissioner Nirav Shah, who in February of this year said he was just “weeks away” from releasing the results of his research on the potential public health impacts of proposed new fracking rules from the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation, is covering for his boss, Gov. Andrew “Ditherer” Cuomo (see