Court Rules That Ohio Law Allows Chesapeake Energy to Cut Landowner Royalties

By -
From Reuters:
A U.S. District Court in Akron has ruled that Ohio law allows energy companies to deduct fees from payments to royalty holders whose contracts set a value at the well site, settling a widely-followed case involving Chesapeake Energy. 
The decision defined for the first time what Ohio law means when it says value of energy in such contracts is established “at the well.” Plaintiffs in the lawsuit had sought class action status and other royalty cases have alleged improper deductions based on the ‘at the well’ language.

Ohio has become the sixth largest natural gas producer in the United States because of the discovery in recent decades of shale gas in what has become known as the Utica shale field. 
In 2009, Regis Lutz and other royalty holders sued Chesapeake, Columbia Energy Group and NiSource Inc alleging breach of contract and fraud over deductions for services that took place after the fuel left the wells on their properties. Columbia Energy Group and NiSource were subsequently dismissed from the lawsuit. 
Their contracts specified royalties would be paid based on a percentage of the value at the well, and plaintiffs argued that the energy companies improperly took deductions for costs such as processing and marketing that were incurred far from the well.
Read the whole article by clicking here.

To learn more about the creative accounting that Chesapeake uses to slash landowner royalties as much as possible, click here to read ProPublica's investigative report from 2013.

Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter!

Popular posts from this blog

Fracktivist in Dimock Releases Carefully Edited Video, Refuses to Release the Rest

By -
Image
From Energy in Depth: There is something very strange going on along Carter Road, in Dimock, Pennsylvania, and I’m not speaking of natural gas, methane migration, contamination, litigation or even the extensive water testing there by the EPA and others.  No, I’m talking about a new “Watergate” conspiracy, complete with 18 minutes of missing tape (well, video, actually). It seems the ever-present Green Party member and  naturist   Vera Scroggins  (a/k/a  Vera Duerga ) has posted a video of Craig Sautner meeting with the EPA.  Mysteriously, the video is but 14 seconds in length, cutting off conversation in what is obviously mid-stream.  It raises a question Craig Sautner, like  Ronald Reagan in Kings Row , might have asked, “Where’s the rest of me?’  Carter Road, isn’t Kings Row, of course, (at least not until you arrive at  the mansion Scott Ely, one of the Dimock litigants, is building with his royalty money ), but there appears to be...
Read more

The Second Largest Oil and Gas Merger - Cabot and Cimarex

By -
Image
       Due to investor pressure, the U.S shale drillers are being pushed to improve financial and operational performance after a few years of poor returns. Even though the industry has improved its numbers, when compared to last year, investors still want more to be done for them to earn more money.      That's why two mid-tier shale drillers, Cabot and Climarex, have decided to merge in order to eliminate $100 million in annual costs, which means more money for the investors. This all-stock transaction is valued at about $7.4 billion, which is relatively high for the oil and gas sector.      The new entity will be renamed and the headquarters located in Houston, Texas. Cabot shareholders will own 49.5 percent of the new entity, and Climarex the rest.       The Cimarex-Cabot merger will address the investor's demand for a higher amount of returning cash. The initial plan is to pay a 50-cent-per-share special dividen...
Read more

Do You Know The History of Fracking?

By -
Image
  In 2018, 59% of total oil production in the U.S came from hydraulic fracking, which means it accounted for more than two-thirds of domestically manufactured gas. By 2024, fracking will reach an astounding $68 billion market value! Of course, fracking is not a new drilling method as you can trace it back hundreds of years. That's why we want to consider the history of hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We will be stating historical facts about it and focusing on the major historical occurrences that have influenced modern-day fracking. Pre-Fracking Days The idea of fracking started back in 1862 when Edward A.L. Roberts (Civil War veteran) witnessed Confederate soldiers exploding artillery rounds into a canal that obstructed a battlefield. At the time, Edward A.L. Roberts called it superincumbent fluid tamping. On April 26th, 1865, Edward A.L. Roberts began experimenting with exploding torpedoes, which consisted of lowering a torpedo containing an amount of powder from fifteen to tw...
Read more