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Fed Court OKs OH Class Action Royalty Lawsuit Against Cheseapeake
In 2017 a group of Ohio landowners did what others had previously done in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere–they filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy claiming Chessy had screwed them and about 1,000 other Ohio landowners out of a collective $30 million in royalty payments (see OH Landowners File Royalty Class Action Lawsuit Against Chesapeake).
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Equitrans, builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project, has voluntarily stopped construction on certain portions of the 85% completed project. According to an MVP spokesperson, “The voluntary suspension pertains to areas along the route that may potentially have an impact related to the Endangered Species Act; however, MVP expects to continue with construction, where permitted, in other areas along the route.”
Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. (Transco) filed a request yesterday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to start up the final pieces of its Rivervale South to Market Project in New Jersey. We first told you about the Rivervale project in 2017 when Williams filed an application with FERC (see 
Yesterday MDN told you that new EQT CEO Toby Rice is in the midst of conducting four “town hall” style meetings with landowners–two this week and two next week (see 
Take note Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto: You can only crap on the shale industry for so long before it comes back to bite you on the backside. EQT CEO Toby Rice told a group of landowners Wednesday night that the EQT Foundation (EQT’s charitable giving arm), the third largest foundation by giving in Pittsburgh, is going to shift its donations away from Pittsburgh and to the counties/regions where the company drills.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Layoffs at PES refinery begin, as union argues for continued presence due to safety concerns; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: State regulators want better reporting of lost natural gas; NATIONAL: Natural gas… Assessing if we are close to a bottom; US oil, gas rig count falls 15 on week to level not seen since May 2017; U.S. oil industry has idled 201 rigs in 10 months – does it need to idle more?; INTERNATIONAL: Offshore oil and gas rigs leak more greenhouse gas than expected.
After a bruising proxy fight, Toby and Derek Rice (formerly from Rice Energy) won control of EQT, the largest natural gas-producing company in the U.S. (see 
This one slipped under the radar for a bit. At the end of June, Pittsburgh-area Falcon Drilling, a Marcellus and Utica shale drilling contractor, announced it is buying out and merging in another Pittsburgh-area drilling company, Complete Drilling Solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Last week MDN brought you an RBN Energy article that outlines how Marcellus/Utica gas hitches a ride to the Gulf Coast to feed several LNG export facilities–specifically the newly-minted Cameron LNG export facility (see 
There is no disputing the fact that the Marcellus Shale has fundamentally changed the economic landscape for Pennsylvania–for the better. A former PA state senator and county commissioner from southeast PA recently went on a tour of shale related infrastructure in western PA and wrote an insightful editorial that outlines the case in favor of building *more* natural gas pipelines in the state.
When the anti-fossil fuel Park Foundation pays your salary, your “research” had darned well better reflect an anti-fossil fuel result. Or else the money spigot quickly gets cut off. That’s what explains the latest “study” published (in Europe, not the U.S.) by Cornell University professor Robert Howarth–a study that claims shale drilling is pumping catastrophic amounts of methane into the atmosphere making Mom Earth toast.
We’re highlighting a second scientific study today, this one real. We told you about Cornell University’s Robert Howarth’s faux study that says methane escaping from shale wells is causing the planet to toast. This second study, from Princeton University, actually performed in-the-field experiments to measure methane escaping from Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania. Real science. The study found some 77% of the methane that escapes into the atmosphere comes from 10% of the wells–and concludes if we can identify and fix the 10%, we’ll go a long way to solving the escaping methane issue.