Appeal

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear an appeal of a property rights case and rule on whether the owner of the property in the Marcellus Shale also owns the shale gas it contains.

Noble Energy Inc. and Stone Energy Corp. have agreed to make additional disclosures of how they are managing the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing (fracking), an investment manager organization said Thursday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will review former Amaranth natural gas trader Brian Hunter’s appeal of FERC’s order denying rehearing of claims that he manipulated the natural gas market.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has rebuffed former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s appeal of his May 2006 convictions.

Changes to Louisiana law that would tax the lateral portions of horizontal wells have the state’s producer community ready to fight, but parish tax assessors say laterals should have been taxable all along.

Lawyers for the former Kerr-McGee Corp. said last week they were still “evaluating our options” as to whether to appeal the recent court ruling ordering the producer, which is now part of Anadarko Petroleum Corp., to pay $22.9 million for the alleged underreporting of oil and natural gas royalties.

Kerr-McGee attorneys say they are still “evaluating our options” as to whether to appeal last week’s court ruling ordering the producer, which is now part of Anadarko Petroleum, to pay $22.9 million for the alleged underreporting of oil and natural gas royalties.

Two big tie-ups between oilfield service operators announced last week, which together are worth close to $1.8 billion, appeared to demonstrate the continuing appeal of being able to offer onshore hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracing) services to producers.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider the appeal of former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted in 2006 on 19 criminal charges. In a 3-0 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans last January denied a request to overturn Skilling’s convictions, which the defense claimed were based on incorrect legal theory, faulty jury instructions, a biased jury and prosecutorial misconduct (see NGI, Jan. 12). However, the three-judge panel ordered that Skilling be resentenced, which could reduce the prison term of 24 years and four months. The court agreed with the defense team’s argument that Judge Sim Lake, who presided over Skilling’s trial, had misapplied federal guidelines in enhancing Skilling’s sentence. When Skilling was sentenced, Lake ruled that Skilling’s conduct had endangered a “financial institution” because his actions had damaged the value of Enron’s pension fund. The circuit court found that Enron’s pension fund was not a financial institution. Skilling’s legal team appealed for a review of the case to the Supreme Court in May (see NGI, May 18). The defense team argues that under a federal fraud statute, prosecutors failed to show that Skilling deprived Enron of his “honest services.” The defense also contends that pretrial publicity in Houston, where Enron was headquartered, had prejudiced the jury and led to an unfair trial.