Lawsuit

A state judge in Louisiana has ruled that a law passed earlier this year by the state’s legislature that prohibits state agencies and local governments from filing lawsuits against the oil and gas industry for damage to coastal wetlands does not apply to its main target, the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E).

A bill to kill a mega-lawsuit against the oil and gas industry for damage to Louisiana’s coastal wetlands passed the state’s legislature on Friday and was on its way to Gov. Bobby Jindal for his signature.

Employees at a West Texas oilfield services company deliberately dumped hazardous waste containing acid into a city of Odessa manhole, harming the city’s water treatment operations, a police investigation and lawsuit allege.

As the mayor of Dallas predicted might happen, Fort Worth-based Trinity East Energy LLC is suing the city for millions of dollars after the city council voted last year to deny the company the permits it needed to drill on leases for which it had paid the city more than $19 million.

An oil/gas western field operations unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC recently filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico challenging a drilling ban imposed last year by officials in Mora County. The action dovetails with a similar lawsuit filed in November by the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) and several landowners (see Shale Daily, Nov. 19, 2013).

New Mexico oil and natural gas operators and landowners are challenging in federal court a ban on any type of hydrocarbon drilling in Mora County, a sparsely populated jurisdiction in the northeastern section of the state (see Shale Daily,May 13).

Encana Corp. and the British Columbia (BC) Oil and Gas Commission have been sued by a coalition of conservation groups for allegedly violating the provisions of short-term water permits to ensure enough supplies are available for unconventional natural gas drilling.

A federal judge last Monday certified five separate class action cases against EQT Corp. and Consol Energy Corp. that could potentially add up to 15,000 plaintiffs in Southwest Virginia alleging that the companies cheated them out of millions of dollars in royalty payments (seeDaily GPI,Sept. 18). In dispute are past payments for coalbed methane (CBM) gas production in the far western corner of the state dating back 23 years.

BP plc has sued the U.S. government to overturn a suspension from federal contracts for most of its entities, including the exploration and production (E&P) arm.