Court

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has reversed a lower court ruling that approval by those holding oil and natural gas royalty rights is required for pooling agreements in the state’s Marcellus Shale.

The West Virginia Supreme Court has sided with EQT Production Co. in a dispute over natural gas royalty payments, ruling that producers can deduct post-production costs in calculating the price at the wellhead.

The Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas has denied Sunoco Pipeline LP’s request to summarily dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by the Clean Air Council (CAC) and two landowners that challenges the constitutionality of the Mariner East 2 pipeline, clearing the way forward for one of the last remaining legal efforts to stop the project.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has ordered the state not to fight a court ruling that would require public safety, health and the environment to be protected as a precondition before allowing new oil and natural gas drilling. However, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said she would defy the governor, appealing the case to the Colorado Supreme Court.

A Trump administration request to hold in abeyance a flurry of lawsuits challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP) was granted Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG) subsidiaries have have asked a federal court to review the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) decision to deny the Northern Access expansion project a water quality certification and other permits. NFG filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday. DEC rejected the project’s permits earlier this month, saying construction would negatively impact the environment. The 490,000 Dth/d Northern Access project would expand the Empire and National Fuel systems to move natural gas from wells in northwest Pennsylvania to markets in New York, Canada, the Northeast and the Midwest.

The U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals has denied a plaintiff’s’ petition for a rehearing of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East’s (SLFPA-E) lawsuit against oil and gas companies alleging damages to coastal land. Plaintiffs have exhausted all avenues of litigation, except through the U.S. Supreme Court. “We are pleased with the panel’s decision to uphold the U.S. district court decision to do away with the SLFPA-E lawsuit. These frivolous lawsuits have contributed to the litigious hellhole we now find our state in.” said Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. “This action throws cold water on current litigation against Louisiana’s oil and gas industry.” In July 2013, the Board of Commissioners of SLFPA-E filed a lawsuit in Louisiana state court against 97 exploration and production oil and gas companies alleging that their activities had damaged coastal lands and that they also “increased the risk of flooding due to storm surges and necessitated costly flood protection measures.” The district concluded that on all of the board’s claims, none of the board’s stated grounds for relief constituted a claim under state law. The board then appealed. Last March the appeals court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claim.

Never far from controversy or criticism during its four-year history, California’s market-based, multi-billion-dollar cap-and-trade auction was upheld on a 2-1 vote of a state appellate court in Sacramento on Thursday.

Almost a decade removed from the alleged energy market manipulations that spawned it, a $453 million FERC penalty against Barclays Bank plc and four of its energy traders remains unpaid and unresolved following a ruling last Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento.