PA Landowners Win $1.1M Lawsuit Against ECA re Royalty Deductions
On Monday, October 24, 2016, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (in Western Pennsylvania) ruled that Marcellus driller ECA (Energy Corporation of America) did not prove a need for a new trial in the case it previously lost. Pennsylvania landowners sued ECA in federal court beginning in 2010, saying their royalty checks were shorted because ECA was improperly deducting post-production costs. Sound familiar? In February 2013 a federal judge upheld a split decision that said most of what ECA was deducting was OK, but the one thing they can’t deduct from royalty checks are charges for interstate pipeline transmission (for the full story, read our post Federal Judge Upholds Split Decision in PA Royalty Case). More legal wrangling ensued after that decision and a jury trial convened in March 2015. The trial was to determine whether or not the landowners were shorted royalty payments because ECA was deducting charges for transportation and marketing. The jury found for the landowners and against ECA, awarding the landowners a $1.1 million judgment. ECA asked for a new trial and they have now been denied…
Read More “PA Landowners Win $1.1M Lawsuit Against ECA re Royalty Deductions”
On Friday, ahead of releasing its third quarter update, Williams issued a press release to confirm what we already know: Atlantic Sunrise will be delayed. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. Two weeks ago the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced a delay in the environmental review of the project (see 
Two weeks ago MDN wrote a post outlining an initiative to begin regulating small, low-pressure gathering pipelines–something not now done (see 
You may recall that for some time we’ve been following the back and forth between Range Resources and their (former) wastewater impoundments in Washington County, PA. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Range a whopping $4.15 million for violations in September 2014 (see 
MDN reported on Monday of this week that we are down to the wire with passing Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1391, a bill that would guarantee a 12.5% minimum royalty payment for PA landowners (see 
In May 2014 Panda Power Funds broke ground on building an 829-megawatt Marcellus gas-fired electric generating plant in Asylum Township, Bradford County, PA (see 
The 16,000-member Pennsylvania Medical Society is controlled by a small and dedicated group of radical leftists. They’re also shockingly stupid, for doctors and medical people (you might want to seek medical care in another state). The PA Medical Society’s 300-member House of Delegates voted unanimously to pass a resolution calling for a total ban on fracking in the Keystone State. Stop it–all of it–right now. That’s what they said. Even though there is no evidence that fracking harms human health. That is, independent studies done all say the same thing: fracking is safe. However, biased bought-and-paid-for studies say fracking will kill ‘ya. We find it astonishing that there was not one single delegate who didn’t vote for the resolution–which proves our point that radical, lock-step lefties control the society…
Two weeks ago the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) filed a court challenge to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) onerous new Marcellus drilling regulations (see 
MDN has extensively covered the story of what will become the largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Pennsylvania, being built by Invenergy in Jessup Township in Lackawanna County (see 
Yesterday EQT announced a pair of deals that will net the company another 60,000 Marcellus/Utica acres including 44 Marcellus wells producing a collective 44 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d) of natural gas. Most of the acreage (42,600) is in three West Virginia counties, with another 17,000 acres in three Pennsylvania counties. EQT is paying a total of $683 million for the two deals. In the first deal, EQT is buying Trans Energy, Inc., which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of EQT. EQT is also buying Trans Energy joint venture partner Republic Energy’s share in their Marcellus jv. The land is located in Marion, Wetzel and Marshall counties (WV). In the second deal, EQT is buying 17,000 acres from an unidentified third party in southwestern PA, in Washington, Westmoreland and Greene counties. EQT describes the purchases as adding acreage to their “core development area.” You may recall that EQT closed a deal in July, just three months ago, to purchase 62,500 acres from Statoil in WV for $407 million (see 
Last week MDN reported that electric company FirstEnergy has begun construction of a new electric substation in Washington County, PA to provide electricity to “support two natural gas processing facilities being developed in the area” (see 
“What is all the fuss over Pennsylvania’s Chapter 78a drilling rules going into effect anyway? We mean, come on, those rules were hashed out over the past five years! Can’t the drilling industry just bend over and take it like a man? It can’t be all that bad, can it?” With pleasure, we bring you a response to that line of thinking–a line of thinking YOU may have thought! The writer, Colin McNickle, is a former editorial page chief for the superb Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. McNickle tackles Chapter 78a head-on in this excellent rebuttal. It is nothing short of a declared war on shale gas and oil…
We spotted what is, to us, a fascinating story about propane use across the country. There are those, like LP Gas magazine, that closely watch usage trends for propane. As you may know, propane is an NGL, or natural gas liquid. It is one of the hydrocarbons that comes out of a borehole drilled to extract either oil or natural gas. Along with oil and gas other hydrocarbons come out of the hole–NGLs like propane, ethane, butane, etc. One of the places propane is increasingly produced, and consumed, is in the northeast–because of Marcellus/Utica drilling. The sharp editors at LP Gas noticed an historically unusual trend–a spike way up in propane usage in one of the main regions tracked, in the northeast. The explanation for the spike up in usage? Propane is getting exported from the Marcus Hook refinery. Therefore much larger volumes of propane are being “consumed” by those exports. Which we find fascinating. We are producing AND consuming propane within the Marcellus/Utica region. That is, we’re generating wealth by exporting propane. We knew about ethane exports already happening at Marcus Hook (see 
We’ve written a number of stories about Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1391 that would guarantee landowners receive a 12.5% minimum royalty on the gas extracted from their land, regardless of post-production costs. The issue has led to what MDN calls a civil war between landowners (particularly in Bradford County, PA) and the drilling industry. The clock is ticking and this week is it for this legislative session in PA. If supporters of HB 1391 don’t get the bill passed this week, it will have to be reintroduced and go through the entire process again next year. Supporters like Doug McLinko, a Bradford County commissioner, have warned of serious consequences for the industry if the bill doesn’t get passed. The industry appears to have convinced enough lawmakers to keep the bill bottled up so it doesn’t come to the floor for a vote, which riles landowners. HB 1391’s supporters in the legislature are sounding like it’s already over for this year, and that they will have to fight again next year. We’re concerned what this ongoing situation will do for what has, in the past, been good relations between landowners and drillers. That relationship appears to be souring, at least for some landowners…
Inspired by the criminal actions of eco-terrorists in North Dakota (see