Mealey's Fracking : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Fracking

October 02, 2024
Governments, Fracking Operator Reach $15.5M Deal Resolving Toxic Emissions Lawsuit

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Department of Justice has announced it reached a settlement valued at $15.5 million to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA) at oil and gas production facilities of a fracking operator on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah.
October 02, 2024
Fracking Fluids Company Wins More Than $514,885 For Breach Of Contract

HOUSTON — A federal judge in Texas has awarded a drilling fluids company a combined $514,885.08 for breach of contract, attorney fees and interest in a dispute over an agreement between the fluid company and a hydraulic fracturing services operator. The judge said the fracking services operator presented no evidence to support its position that it did not owe payment pursuant to the contract.
October 02, 2024
States: Supreme Court Stay Of Methane Rule Needed To Avoid ‘Irreparable Harm’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of states has filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of their application for a stay of the 2024 Methane Rule instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that “absent a stay, EPA’s gambit to force the States to submit to EPA’s ‘presumptive standards’ will impose irreparable harm upon the States.”
October 01, 2024
More Than $17.3M In Attorney Fees Awarded After Royalty Class Settlement

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A federal judge in Oklahoma granted a renewed motion for $17,333,333 in attorney fees in an oil and gas royalty payments class lawsuit that has gone on for more than a dozen years and that was settled for $52 million, finding that the requested fees were “reasonable” and opining that distribution of the “fees among class counsel is a matter within their sole discretion.”
September 24, 2024
Groups: Re-Authorization Of Federal Fracking Leases Violated The Law

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Conservation groups have filed an amended complaint against Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and a federal agency in New Mexico federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for their re-authorization and issuance of 32 oil and gas leases covering 5,942.36 acres of land in New Mexico, arguing that they violated federal law when they issued the leases.
September 24, 2024
Panel Says Gas Development Agreement Applied Only To 1 Operator Contract Dispute

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A state appellate panel in Pennsylvania affirmed a trial court’s ruling that an energy development operator breached its contract with a natural gas resources company, but it vacated another part of the trial court’s ruling with regard to a second energy development operator who was a defendant in the matter. The panel said the second energy development operator was a party to a joint development agreement (JDA) and an arbitration provision between the resources company and the second operator; therefore, the trial court erred in granting a preliminary injunction to the resources company.
September 23, 2024
States Ask Supreme Court To Deny Application To Stay EPA’s Emissions Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Sept. 20, the state of California and other states filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court contending that it should deny applications made by the state of Oklahoma and energy companies that want to stay implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule for methane emissions guidelines related to the oil and gas sector because the applicants “fail to demonstrate irreparable harm.”
September 19, 2024
Federal Agencies Seek Reversal Of Ruling On Environmental Impact Of Lease Sales

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and affiliated agencies have filed a notice of appeal in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia indicating that they seek reversal in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of three separate rulings in a dispute with environmental groups over federal hydraulic fracturing. In one of the rulings a judge held that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) erred at times when assessing the environmental impact of a lease sale in Wyoming.
September 17, 2024
Judge Says States’ Claim That Federal Emissions Rule Is ‘Arbitrary’ Has Merit

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota has granted a motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining implementation of a rule promulgated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) establishing standards for methane and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the oil and gas sector, ruling that at the preliminary stage the states have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the rule is “arbitrary and capricious.”
September 09, 2024
Judge Approves Settlements For More Than $42.66M Combined In Royalty Class Action

WHEELING, W.Va. — A federal judge in West Virginia has approved two settlements for a combined $42,667,289 between class representatives and hydraulic fracturing operators related to claims that the companies failed to properly calculate and pay royalties on natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) pursuant to the leases held by the members of the class.
September 06, 2024
Supreme Court Chief Justice Seeks EPA Response To Application To Stay Final Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. has requested a response from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency related to an application from energy companies that seek an immediate stay of the EPA’s final rule for emissions guidelines related to the oil and gas sector.
September 06, 2024
Parties File Final Briefs On Standing In Dispute Over Federal Fracking Permits

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Multiple final briefs have been filed in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals separately by environmental groups, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and hydraulic fracturing proponents in the dispute over federal fracking permits in New Mexico’s Permian Basin and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. In the briefs the parties continue their respective arguments for or against the issuance of permits, with the DOI insisting that the groups have not established injury or causation.
September 05, 2024
Judge Dismisses Breach Of Contract Case, Says Fracking Well Did Not Violate Lease

OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal judge in Oklahoma has dismissed with prejudice a case brought by a mineral owner who contended that a hydraulic fracturing operator “willfully and intentionally” breached the lease between the parties, ruling that the plaintiff did not plausibly allege that the drilling of a particular well, referred to as the Katie Well, was done in violation of the lease.
September 05, 2024
Mineral Rights Holders Say Bid To Dismiss Case Fails Because Trespass Is Continual

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mineral rights holders filed a brief in Ohio federal court on Sept. 4, arguing that it should deny a motion to dismiss their claim against hydraulic fracturing operators related to a dispute over the boundaries of the shale formation from which the fracking companies are extracting natural gas using a procedure called horizontal drilling. The mineral rights owners contend that their complaint survives a motion to dismiss because they allege that the trespass at issue is continual.
September 04, 2024
Magistrate Denies Company’s Bid To Dismiss Fracking Royalty Dispute

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal magistrate judge in Pennsylvania on Sept. 3 denied a hydraulic fracturing operator’s motion to dismiss a breach of contract lawsuit brought by two couples who entered into agreements for the development of natural gas on their properties, ruling that at this juncture of the litigation, the magistrate could not say that the leases in question “are not ambiguous” and, therefore, the claims survive.
September 04, 2024
6th Circuit Mandate Finalizes Decision Denying Royalties To Fracking Operator

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 3 issued the mandate for its split decision that held that a lower court correctly ruled that two hydraulic fracturing companies do not owe another fracking operator royalties because the plaintiff fracking operator that sued in an attempt to get those royalties actually had no interest in the oil and gas produced from the wells in question on grounds that the overriding royalty interests (ORRIs) the plaintiff fracking operator acquired pertain only to royalties from oil and gas produced by vertical shallow wells.
September 03, 2024
Tribes Say Federal Fracking Lease Claims Fail Because Record Is ‘Well-Supported’

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Native American tribal parties, which are intervenor defendants in a dispute over the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) cancellation of federal leases for hydraulic fracturing, filed a joinder on Aug. 30 to a brief filed by the DOI in Alaska federal court arguing that the plaintiffs’ claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) fail “in light of the [DOI’s] reasonable and well-supported record and rationale for lease cancellation.”
August 29, 2024
Group Says Fracking Railroad Ruling ‘Flies In The Face’ Of High Court Precedent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Association of American Railroads (AAR) filed an amicus curiae brief on Aug. 29 in support of parties that want the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that held that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) failed to adequately examine the risk of wildfires and the impact on groundwater posed by the construction of a proposed rail line in Utah that would carry products related to hydraulic fracturing to and from the shale formation in the Uinta Basin. The AAR says the lower court ruling “flies in the face” of Supreme Court precedent.
August 27, 2024
City Of Baltimore: Fracking Operators, Others Conspired To Inflate Oil Prices

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The city of Baltimore has filed a putative class action against multiple hydraulic fracturing companies in New Mexico federal court arguing that they engaged in a conspiracy to restrict the production of crude oil, along with “Wall Street investors, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and certain non-OPEC member countries aligned with OPEC, called “OPEC+” in an effort to inflate the price of crude oil.
August 20, 2024
Study: Companies Use ‘Personal Strategies’ To Get Landowners To Allow Fracking

LAS VEGAS — A research study published Aug. 19 by the journal “Nature Energy” has found that landmen working for hydraulic fracturing companies “have important advantages in the form of persistent and personalized tactics” against landowners in Ohio to force the unitization of wells against the desires of landowners, and it found evidence that landmen engaged in legal compulsion when this persistence fails, which “suggests a considerable procedural inequity at the heart of the process.”
August 19, 2024
Man Files Putative Class Alleging Some Shale Oil Producers Fixed Gas Prices

SAN FRANCISCO — A man filed a putative class action on Aug. 16 against multiple hydraulic fracturing companies in California federal court contending that they engaged in a conspiracy “to coordinate, and ultimately constrain, domestic shale oil production, which has had the effect of fixing, raising, and maintaining the price of retail gasoline” in violation of the Sherman Act.
August 12, 2024
Briefly: Some Claims May Proceed In Securities Fraud Case About Pipeline

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled in a long and winding securities fraud class action related to the construction of a hydraulic fracturing pipeline that only claims brought by shareholders that are based on corrective disclosures made by the pipeline company in August 2018 may proceed.
August 09, 2024
North Dakota Says It Owns Long-Disputed Mineral Rights In Missouri Riverbed

WASHINGTON, D.C. — North Dakota, which is an intervenor defendant in a mineral rights dispute between Native American tribes and the U.S. government, has filed an answer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking it to declare that title to the disputed Missouri Riverbed and underlying mineral interests is quieted in favor of the state.
August 09, 2024
Plaintiffs Seek 10th Circuit Review Of Fracking Royalty Class Action Saga

DENVER — Plaintiffs in a royalty payment dispute on Aug. 8 appealed to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a lower court ruling that denied their motion to remand the case to Colorado state court and granted a hydraulic fracturing company’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, as the third iteration of a long-running class action plods along.
August 08, 2024
Groups Insist Federal Fracking Permit Approval Causes Harm, Standing Established

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Environmental groups that challenge federal hydraulic fracturing permits issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) pertaining to New Mexico’s Permian Basin and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin filed a reply brief on Aug. 7 in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals insisting that they have plausibly alleged standing because they have alleged sufficient facts that their members’ “aesthetic, recreational, spiritual, and professional interests in listed species, public lands, and a healthy environment are harmed” by the issuance of fracking permits.