Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio | Statewide OH
OH Landowner Loses Post-Production Royalty Case to Chesapeake
Chesapeake Energy keeps winning Ohio royalty lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In March the company beat a lawsuit by a group of Ohio landowners who claimed Chessy had cheated them out of a collective $30 million in royalties (see Chesapeake Energy & Total Beat Class Action Royalty Lawsuit in OH). In April Chesapeake won a second lawsuit that claimed the company had fraudulently concealed information on royalty statements dating back to 1993 (see Chesapeake Beats Another OH Royalty Lawsuit in Federal Court). And now, a third royalty lawsuit has gone Chessy’s way too. Strike three for landowners.
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FirstEnergy, now calling itself Energy Harbor, somehow got into the pockets (via campaign donations) of enough Ohio politicians (many of them Republican) to convince them to pass a horrible law last year–House Bill (HB) 6. HB 6 grants the company $1 billion in corporate welfare over seven years in a deal to prop up its two “unprofitable” nuclear power plants. Now that the first $150 million is about to flow, how will Energy Harbor use it? To pay its so-called high operating costs? No. Energy Harbor will funnel the money right into the pockets of big investors. It was all a scam.
Last year a sewage treatment facility in Belle Vernon (Fayette County, PA) claimed the effluent (runoff) it was receiving from a nearby landfill in Westmoreland County contained high levels of salt and radioactivity and was causing damage to their treatment system (see 
Last time we wrote about a zoning ordinance in Murrysville Township (Westmoreland County) was three years ago, in May 2017, when the town and local drillers struck a compromise on the distance of setbacks (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio appellate court holds that words of inheritance are required to reserve oil and gas interests; Appalachia leads gains for natural gas forwards as EQT curbs output; Medical communities count on products manufactured by natgas, hydraulic fracking; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: University of California system to divest fossil fuel investments; U.S. shale bust slams rural economies as oil checks shrivel; NATIONAL: “On pause”: Offshore oil industry faces its biggest setback in years; Doomsday predictions for U.S. oil just aren’t realistic; Coronavirus threatens to hobble the U.S. shale-oil boom for years; Biden offshore drilling ban would kill 200,000 jobs, oil lobby says; INTERNATIONAL: Why the International Energy Agency supports America’s shale oil and natural gas revolution; The U.S. becomes the world’s swing LNG producer; Eight countries say gas deserves help as EU readies ‘green recovery’ fund.
This has to be a first in the modern shale era. There are now more active fracking crews working in the Marcellus Shale than in any other shale play, including the oily Permian. There are 450 fracking fleets available in the U.S., but only 70 of them are active right now. The Marcellus is using 31% of those active fleets, while the Permian is using 30%. We never thought we’d live to see the day!
It had to happen sooner or later. Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2020 (full copy below). It shows natgas production in PA rose 6.8% compared to the same period last year. However, overall production fell compared to 4Q19’s record high, breaking a streak that went back 3.5 years.
For the past month or so MDN has brought you rig count data from Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo) each Friday. Last Friday we reported the count had hit a new modern-day low, and that the Marcellus had lost another couple of rigs, making it a total of seven lost rigs in the Marcellus over a three week period (see 
It’s kind of a mystery. The supply of natural gas produced in the U.S. has been declining over the past few months. Oil drillers are laying down rigs (historic lows for rigs in the oil patch), and companies are shutting in oil wells–all of which means there’s less associated natural gas being produced. M-U drillers like EQT (the largest natgas producer in the U.S.) are curtailing huge quantities of their production (see 
Last week MDN reported about a compressor fire at the Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island LNG export facility in Georgia (see 
Baker Hughes, one of the largest oilfield services (drilling) companies in the U.S. and the world, began keeping records on rig counts starting in 1987. As of May 12, 2020, producers operated 339 rigs in the U.S. That’s the lowest number of operating rigs since Baker Hughes began publishing its venerated rig count. It’s not the kind of record we like to see broken.
We spotted an interesting story by S&P Global Platts about the dramatic increase in the stock price for gas-focused drillers, particularly in the Marcellus/Utica. Did you know that EQT’s stock has shot up 127% in value over the past three months? Range Resources and Southwestern Energy are both up 81% in value. Antero Resources is up 76%. It’s impressive! Then again, the stock price for most of those companies decreased by 90% over the past five years, so we have a lot of ground to make up.