Litigation

Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Lenape Resources | Litigation | Livingston County | New York | Regulation

NY Driller Threatens DEC with Lawsuit over Town Bans
August 1, 2012August 1, 2012

In the misguided attempt to ban hydraulic fracturing in New York, one town took their ban vote too far. MDN reported about the bone-headed vote by the Town of Avon (Livingston County, NY) on June 28 to ban drilling activity in the town with a broadly worded zoning ordinance (see this MDN story).

A local driller with wells in Avon, Lenape Resources, warned Avon that the broad language they intended to use in their zoning ordinance would cause Lenape to shut down 16 existing conventional (vertical-only) gas wells they operate in the town along with a gas pipeline. Avon town board members didn’t listen and passed the new ordinance. Lenape president John Holko promptly shut down all of his wells in the town, ending free gas for some local residents, and low cost gas for the town itself. A really dumb move on the part of Avon.

There is a new development in this ongoing situation.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Officials Ask PA Supreme Court to Hurry Up with Act 13 Case
July 31, 2012July 31, 2012

A court filing by state officials yesterday—including the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the Attorney General and the Dept. of Environmental Protection—asks the PA Supreme Court to expedite an appeal of the Act 13 zoning case. Last week the appellate court in PA ruled against the state’s new Act 13 law zoning provisions (see this MDN story). According to Gov. Tom Corbett, without the zoning portions of Act 13, the new law will be gutted.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation

Lawyers Look at Court Cases that Challenge Fracking
July 31, 2012July 31, 2012

The Legal Intelligencer, the oldest law journal in the U.S., publishes an article in the current issue titled “Shale Development and Fracking Litigation Trends.” It takes a look at court cases filed on the basis of supposed harm from hydraulic fracturing. The authors say of the 40 plus cases filed in state and federal court related to fracking, most remain unresolved at this time. Of the ones that are resolved, the cases against fracking cited by the authors were dismissed for lack of proof that fracking caused harm.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Gov. Corbett Appeals Act 13 Zoning Case to Supreme Court
July 30, 2012July 30, 2012

Last week the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, the “appellate” court in PA, ruled in favor of seven towns who had sued the state over the zoning portion of the newly enacted Act 13 drilling law (see this MDN story). At the time Gov. Tom Corbett said he would appeal the decision and he has made good on his word. The case now heads to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Court Overturns Zoning Section of Act 13 Drilling Law
July 27, 2012July 27, 2012

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court (the appellate court in PA) yesterday issued ruling on the zoning portion of the newly enacted Act 13 drilling law—and they ruled it unconstitutional. A full copy of the court’s opinion and ruling is embedded below. This is round two in the court fight. Round three, an appeal to the PA Supreme Court, will almost certainly come from Gov. Tom Corbett (he has as much as promised it).

MDN will give our overview of what the court decided, and of the dissenting opinion. But one thing caught our eye right away. MDN has made the argument several times that the Delaware Riverkeeper Network has no standing to be part of the lawsuit against the state and against Act 13 (see this MDN story). The good news with yesterday’s decision is that the justices tossed the Delaware Riverkeeper Network from the lawsuit, saying (as MDN has all along) they have no standing to participate and bring the suit in the first place. It’s a small and symbolic victory for those of us who support drilling, but a victory nonetheless.

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Carroll County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Pipelines

OH Landowner Loses in Court, Chesapeake Builds Pipeline
July 25, 2012July 25, 2012

A landowner in Carroll County, OH who had sued to stop Chesapeake Energy from installing a pipeline to a well on his property lost the court battle last Friday. Joseph Coniglio had leased his land for drilling to Anschutz, which later assigned the lease to Chesapeake, but he had not signed an agreement for pipelines to be built connecting to wells drilled on his property. Coniglio says the lease specifically prohibits pipelines without a special agreement. Landowners often will receive extra compensation for any pipelines installed to a well, and Coniglio wanted to do a deal with Chesapeake for the well on his property.

Chesapeake says the original agreement allows them to hook up the well to a pipeline. Coniglio went to court earlier in July and won a restraining order. A judge overturned it on Friday and the pipeline is now almost complete.

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Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Shell | Steuben County

Sierra Club Sues to Stop Water Sales in Steuben County, NY
July 9, 2012December 19, 2012

In March 2012, the village board in Painted Post (Steuben County), NY voted to sell water to Shell for use in fracking operations across the border in Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) gave its blessing to Painted Post to sell up to 1 million gallons of water day. But the decision doesn’t sit well with anti-drillers.

According to NGI’s Shale Daily, the Sierra Club and several area organizations sued the village board in late June to stop the sale from taking place.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Utica Shale

Chesapeake’s Best Utica Well (Buell 8H) in Legal Trouble
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

From time to time MDN will tackle a complicated issue and try to, as briefly as possible, break it down for our readers to understand the essence of it. This is one of those issues. It involves property rights, contracts, deeds, a sympathetic landowner, and Chesapeake Energy’s single largest-producing Utica Shale well in Ohio—the Buell Well.

The Buell Well, designated Buell 8H by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, is named after the landowner Kenneth Buell, a 73 year-old farmer. It’s located in Archer Township in Harrison County, OH. It was one of the first Utica Shale wells to be drilled in Ohio and previously yielded 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 198 days—2% of the total gas production for the entire state. It’s 300 times more productive than the average vertical well in Ohio, and it has also has produced in excess of 13,000 barrels of oil. By any measure it’s a star performer—the star performer in Ohio. And it’s now in danger of being shut down because of legal disputes over who owns the rights to drill it. That’s where the situation gets messy and complicated.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Regulation

DC Court Clears Way for EPA to Regulate Methane
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Welcome to the USSA – the United Socialist States of America. Just think USSR updated, because that’s what we’ve now become.

The reason for this latest MDN tirade? Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled in favor of the rogue, power-hungry so-called Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a case that will allow unelected bureaucrats inside the EPA to regulate everything—all human activity—under the guise that said activity produces greenhouse gas emissions (a copy of the ruling is embedded below).

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Supreme Court Rules Industry Can’t Join Act 13 Lawsuit
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Last Friday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a request by the Marcellus Shale drilling industry to participate in the lawsuit brought by seven towns, a few individuals and “a non-profit organization” against the new Act 13 drilling law in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit seeks to overturn a portion of Act 13, the part that substitutes statewide zoning regulations for local zoning regulations when it comes to the oil and gas drilling industry.

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Accidents | Bradford County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania

Chesapeake Pays 3 PA Families $1.6M for Methane Contamination
June 25, 2012June 25, 2012

Chesapeake Energy settled a case with several landowners in the small community of Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA who say their well water was contaminated by Chesapeake’s nearby drilling activity. Three families will receive $1.6 million from Chesapeake which includes buying out their homes so they can move. Some 30 other area families are in various stages of litigation with Chesapeake over the same issue.

For MDN, the fascinating aspect of this story is how the news has been covered by mainstream media. First, the news itself, then “the real news”:

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | New York | Statewide NY

Victory for NY Landowners in Chesapeake Force Majeure Case
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

In a major victory for New York landowners, Attorney General Eric Schniederman’s office reached a settlement with Chesapeake Energy to allow 4,400+ landowners with a collective 264,000 acres to renegotiate old gas drilling leases that Chesapeake was attempting to extend using the “force majeure” clause. MDN has followed this story for more than a year (see this MDN story from May 2011 for history and background).

As a brief background, a number of New York landowners—many of them in the Southern Tier area of New York—signed gas drilling leases in 2000 with small drilling companies. The leases had a 10-year term. Most of the landowners got $3 per acre as a signing bonus. Those leases, along with leases signed prior to 2000, were bought by Chesapeake in the mid-2000s. In 2009, Chesapeake sent letters to New York landowners invoking the force majeure clause, which is legalese for “we’re extending the contract term due to extenuating circumstances, which we believe is our right to do.” The extenuating circumstance? The moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing that was implemented by then-Gov. David Paterson in 2008.

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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Norse Energy | Statewide NY

Norse Says NY Force Majeure Settlement Doesn’t Apply to Them
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

MDN reported today that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office struck a deal with Chesapeake Energy over the issue of extending landowner leases in New York using the “force majeure” clause in the contract (see this MDN story). Norse Energy issued a press release saying essentially that the deal does not apply to them, and their force majeure claims are still in place until overturned by a court.

Here’s the Norse press release:

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Bradford County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Inergy | Litigation | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sullivan County

Court Clears Way to Build MARC 1 Marcellus Pipeline in PA
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the construction of the MARC 1 Marcellus Shale pipeline to be built in northeastern Pennsylvania. The court released a decision yesterday rejecting claims by “environmental” groups to stop the pipeline. Part of their argument revolved around “the broader impacts” caused by natural gas drilling—that is, pipelines make more drilling likely and that’s not a good thing (according to them). The court rejected that argument.

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Brooke County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Equinor/Statoil | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Range Resources Corp | West Virginia

WV Couple Challenges Chesapeake Lease Renewal
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

A husband and wife in Brooke County, West Virginia are suing to have their 5 year-old lease, which is now expired and up for renewal, nullified so Chesapeake (now the owner of the lease) cannot automatically renew it as they are attempting to do.

Increasingly landowners who signed leases that are now expiring after a customary 5 year period face the same issue—and drillers are trying to lock them in under the terms of lease for a new period of time.

Here’s the story of Ramon and Lois Bowen:

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Columbiana County | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio | Utica Shale

Columbiana County, OH Landowners Seek Minimum Royalty Law
June 8, 2012June 8, 2012

A few weeks ago MDN highlighted a story about a couple living in Columbiana County, Ohio who were due to get more than $375,000 in lease payments from Chesapeake Energy for their 65 acres of property, but the deal fell through when Chesapeake discovered the land under the property was already locked into a decades-old lease by Columbia Gas Transmission. The couple is suing to be released from that contract (see this MDN story).

We have word today that other landowners from the same area also affected by the Columbia lease are trying a different tact: Pass a state law imposing minimum royalties.

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