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Fed Court Says WV Driller Doesn’t Have to Produce Gas to Keep Lease
We spotted a write-up on a recent court decision coming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in which a West Virginia landowner had a signed Marcellus lease requiring PetroEdge (later Statoil) to drill three wells on or under their property. And yet the courts have sided with the driller, essentially allowing the driller to wiggle out of the terms of the lease.
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In 1990 a landowner freely sold (rather than have taken by eminent domain) land in Lawrence County to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission for a new highway project. In 2012 the landowner filed a lawsuit claiming when selling the land, she did not sell the mineral rights. She wants to lease under the property for shale drilling. Yesterday Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania denied her request.
This is super sleazy. You might want to put on a rain slicker to keep the crap from sticking to you as you read it. Last week Chester County, PA commissioners asked to join a lawsuit against Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline projects. The commissioners also voted to end easements allowing Sunoco access to the pipeline as it runs through county property, access needed so they could do work on it.
You can feel the excitement and anticipation building. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the Constitution Pipeline from northeast Pennsylvania into central New York in 2014, more than four years ago. This year, 2019, may be the year construction finally begins–and the year antis who have fought this pipeline every inch of the way finally LOSE.
Anti fossil fuel freaks have scored a victory in reducing the amount of electricity available to New Jersey’s southern shore area (rolling blackouts anyone?). There was a plan to convert a now-closed coal-fired electric generating plant to use natural gas, fed to it by a new (very short) pipeline.
The light at the end of the tunnel for Constitution Pipeline just got brighter. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to pass the ball back to them so they can reconsider whether or not to overrule New York State’s blockage of a permit for the Constitution. FERC’s action signals they may be ready to rule against NY and allow Constitution to begin construction.
Dominion Energy has about had it up to *here* with the clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circus. Dominion asked for all of the judges sitting on the Fourth Circuit to rehear a case that blocks the pipeline from drilling *under* the Appalachian Trail because of a lawsuit brought by colluding Big Green groups trying to kill the entire project. The clowns refused.
We’ve written extensively over the years about the Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA) and even about the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), both of which impact Utica shale rights. There has been an ongoing question of whether or not the MTA can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner. The answer to that question appears to have been rendered in a court decision made earlier this month.
Big Green insanity continues at the so-called Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF). The only thing they “defend” is their own twisted philosophy of trying to gouge out the eyes of the oil and gas industry in PA–even at the expense of de-funding their own beloved PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
There had been an ongoing legal squabble in Trumbull County, OH over a proposed Utica gas-fired electric plant in Lordstown, located next door to another gas-fired plant (see 
In November seven anti-pipeline residents of Chester and Delaware counties (Philadelphia suburbs) filed a lawsuit against the Mariner East pipeline projects–1, 2 and 2X–alleging the pipelines are unsafe. It didn’t take long for others to jump on the litigation bandwagon:
On Tuesday EQT filed lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and federal courts against two former employees it had fired, claiming the employees, before they were fired (sensing it was coming) had systematically copied confidential information from company computers and took it with them when they left.