Officials in Robinson Township, PA, told leaseholders that they were welcome to contact Range Resources Corp. and try to convince the company to reapply for two Marcellus Shale drilling permits the township denied in February. But the company said it will not reapply, and was confident it would win a lawsuit against the township over the denied permits.

Last September, Range filed permit applications with the township to drill two wells targeting the Marcellus. Hearings were scheduled for the fall and decisions expected by January. But the company filed suit in Washington County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 28, alleging the township was delaying the approval process. The township denied both permit applications on Feb. 11.

Brian Coppola, chairman of the Robinson Township Board of Supervisors, told NGI that the room was full for its board meeting on March 11, with many leaseholders in attendance.

“The leaseholders asked us if they could contact Range and see if we can work something out,” Coppola said. “We were pretty clear that there’s no reason they can’t contact Range, and that Range can’t come back in and reapply for those two well pads. We really had no problem with the location of the pads or some of the things that they wanted to do, it’s just that there’s a format and there’s a procedure that they have to follow with the paperwork and they just didn’t do it.”

Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella told NGI that the company would not reapply.

“We’re confident that it’s going to work itself out, but we can’t go back through the process of reapplying and starting this all over,” Pitzarella said. “Put yourself in our situation. We start again and then what? Six months later they reject our permits again? We just can’t have that kind of uncertainty. It’s unfortunate. Nobody wants to see these things tied up in the legal system. That’s not a particularly fast moving process.”

Pitzarella said Range had no problems applying for similar permits two years ago, and that the company had actually submitted three to four times the amount of information the township had requested for the latest two permit applications. He added that Range had leases in Robinson Township that were approaching their expiration date. He said the company keeps in regular contact with its leaseholders.

Robinson Township is at the forefront of a legal challenge mounted by municipal governments against the state and Act 13, Pennsylvania’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is weighing whether to uphold or overturn an appellate court ruling that said portions of Act 13 were unconstitutional on the grounds that its limits on local zoning violate municipalities’ right to substantive due process (see NGI, Oct. 22, 2012). The case is Robinson Township et al v. Commonwealth et al, (No. 284-MD-2012).

Kevin Moody, general counsel for the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, told NGI that it was unlikely the state Supreme Court would rule on the Robinson case before June at the earliest.

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