OH Supremes Rule Landowners have 21 Yrs to Claim Lease Expiration
An interesting Ohio Supreme Court ruling from last week caught our attention, thanks to the legal beagles at Vorys. As with most of these cases, this one is complex. But we want to highlight *why* it’s important right up front: Landowners (or mineral rights owners, usually the one and the same but not always) have a longer period of time, 21 years, to bring an action to reclaim their severed mineral rights than the previously thought 15 years–in certain situations. That was the upshot in Browne v. Artex Oil Co.
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It’s the end of the road for some not-so-nice folks in Nicetown, a Philadelphia neighborhood. In 2016, Philadelphia’s SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) announced plans to build a Marcellus gas-powered electric plant to provide electricity to SEPTA’s northern Regional Rail lines and a bus garage (see 
MDN previously reported on the rumor that ExxonMobil is sniffing around southwestern Pennsylvania looking for a site to build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant (see 
Speaking of the Mariner East (ME) pipelines and the NGLs (primarily ethane, but also propane and butane) they flow, why isn’t the organized business community (i.e. Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce) doing more to stick up for the ME pipeline projects? MDN friend Garland Thompson, a gifted reporter/writer who covers energy and technology issues for US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, recently penned an open letter to the Philly Chamber challenging them to get off their collective butts and defend ME and the jobs it will create in the greater Philly region.
For years (maybe a generation) we’ve heard the refrain that America needs to become “energy independent.” But what does that phrase actually mean? It means we produce enough of our own energy (oil, natural gas, nuclear, renewable, etc.) that if push comes to shove, we could actually survive if the rest of the world decided to cut us off from all sources of outside energy. Can you actually measure such an amorphous concept? Turns out you can.
Some 33 industry associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute, sent a letter to White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Mary Neumayr last Friday asking the agency to “expeditiously proceed” with efforts to “modernize” National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. What is NEPA and why should you care?
Here’s something that really bugs us. The Donald J. Trump Administration is doing its best to try and roll back some of the smothering overregulation foisted on the oil and gas industry during the Obama reign of terror. Example: The EPA is looking to reverse direct regulation of oil and gas methane (created by Obama) because the EPA already regulates methane emissions via regulations for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Yet a few oil “majors” (biggest oil companies in the world) want the EPA to continue its onerous methane regulations. Thing is, the oil majors that want this insane overregulation are NOT American-based companies.
Sometimes the bad guy wins. That’s life. It’s just happened in New York State. National Grid has caved–bowing to the extortion demands of an autocratic governor (Cuomo) in order to stay in business. New York’s system of justice is now fully, completely, 100% corrupted by Cuomo. A very sad day here in New York. Cuomo has claimed victory over National Grid and any other utility that would dare to challenge his autocratic, dictatorial authority in the state by getting National Grid to not only give up its demand for a new pipeline (Northeast Supply Enhancement, NESE) to provide natural gas supplies, but to actually pay a $36 million fine (i.e. bribe) in order to stay in business. Democracy is gone. Hello tyranny.
Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) is a small-to-midsized driller headquartered in Morgantown, WV. It’s a young company, drilling its first shale well in 2013. In April 2017 MDN reported that NNE had obtained $300 million of investment from two investment firms (see 
A year ago North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly launched an investigation into a permit issued by Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to allow the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project to get built (see 
New York’s Attorney General has viciously gone after ExxonMobil in state court hoping to prove the company knew, for years, that burning its oil and gas would lead to so-called man-made global warming and eventually kill the planet. And, says the AG, Exxon covered it up from investors because someday their stock will be worthless when everyone finds out, and they don’t want investors to know about it just yet. The AG is trying to prove the company has engaged in securities fraud–and that case is collapsing, near to having all charges dismissed.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a liberal Democrat who sometimes supports the shale gas industry (as long as he can tax it) has caved to demands from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to launch a “study” in a bid to “prove” cases of childhood cancer in southwestern PA can be tied to shale drilling in the region. A pair of studies, actually. The studies won’t be completed for three years, after Wolf is out of office, so he gets credit for caring, but he won’t be around for the fallout when it happens.