Range Resources Challenges South Fayette's Drilling Law

- Range Resources Challenges South Fayette's Drilling Law

Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by Mike Wereschagin, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

A natural gas company has asked South Fayette's zoning board to overturn a 2010 law it says enacts a de facto ban on drilling in the township.

Range Resources petitioned the board on Tuesday, saying the restrictions strip the company's right to drill on 4,000 acres it has leased in the township. South Fayette's ordinance, enacted on Nov. 15, bans drilling within certain distances of homes, schools, streams, ponds, gas stations, mobile home parks, day cares, hospitals and nursing homes. The distances range from 300 feet to 2,500 feet.

Add each restriction together -- plus the requirement that the land on which drilling takes place be at least 10 acres -- and it covers the town's entire land mass, Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella said.

"You can't (drill in South Fayette). It can't be done," Pitzarella said.

One of the law's chief supporters said the legislation leaves land open to drilling -- just not some of the land Range has leased.

"Their problem is they bought their way into some land that's right in the middle of the community," said Keith McDonough, head of the anti-drilling group Friends of South Fayette. McDonough said he wanted to ban drilling in the town, but state law forbids it. "The entire western border (of South Fayette) that borders Cecil Township, which is heavily drilled, is all permissible. I wish that weren't the case, to be honest with you, but it is."

The conflict arises as municipalities around the state are crafting their own drilling regulations -- something Range worries will lead to an unpredictable and costly patchwork of restrictions on its business. There are 2,565 municipalities in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors in December published a model zoning ordinance for towns to use, although it doesn't recommend the size of buffer zones.

Just across the state line, a Morgantown judge struck down that city's drilling ban on Friday, saying it illegally pre-empted state law. Range says in its complaint to the South Fayette zoning board that Pennsylvania law also doesn't allow towns to ban drilling.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has allowed municipalities to restrict drilling to certain areas by using zoning ordinances, said Myron Arnowitt, state director of environmental group Clean Water Action.

Arnowitt called South Fayette's ordinance "one of the best ... in the region." He said he wasn't sure whether it was legal to use zoning rules to ban drilling, and said he didn't know whether South Fayette's law amounts to such a de facto ban.

According to one South Fayette commissioner, "it's arguable" that it does.

"By limiting drilling to a very limited amount of zones, as South Fayette does, it does severely impact drilling operations," said Sue Caffrey. She said the ordinance was an emotional reaction to widespread drilling opposition in the town. Rather than solving difficult problems about how to safely regulate drilling, she said, "it kind of skirts that issue through zoning."

"I voted for it, and it is the one vote in my 12 years I regret making," Caffrey said.

The zoning board operates independently of the five-member board of commissioners. Whichever side the zoning board takes on Range's petition, the decision could wind up in the Court of Common Pleas.

Copyright (c) 2011, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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Energy Law Firm Expands Attorney Roster

- Energy Law Firm Expands Attorney Roster

Thursday, June 30, 2011
Burleson LLP

With the addition of 25 attorneys to its offices in Houston, San Antonio, and Pittsburgh, Burleson LLP has broadened its regional and national footprint, further strengthening its ability to provide the widest range of legal services to companies and financial institutions in the oil and gas industry.

“Energy work has always been a major priority for our firm, but the surge of activity in shale plays has been critical in shaping our overall strategic direction,” said Rick Burleson, managing partner. “Our focus on growth – in terms of capabilities, attorneys, and physical office space – has extended our reach significantly, enabling us to work on some of the largest and most important transactions happening in the industry.”

The latest wave of expansion includes:

San Antonio. The firm added eight new attorneys and two partners to its San Antonio location to support litigation and oil and gas title matters for companies operating in the Eagle Ford Shale. The office, which now includes 17 lawyers, has moved to the Weston Center on the River Walk, where nearly 10,000 square feet of space has been leased on the seventh floor of the building located at 112 East Pecan St.

Pittsburgh. Eight lawyers and a partner have joined the Pittsburgh office, reinforcing the firm’s transactional and litigation practice areas for companies with interests in the Marcellus and Utica Shale. Since opening in September 2009, the location has grown from four to 26 attorneys.

Houston. Six new lawyers have been hired in Houston, where Burleson recently moved into new offices in the downtown Pennzoil Building, virtually doubling its square footage. The Houston location now occupies 20,407 square feet on the 11th floor of the building’s North Tower at 700 Milam.

With this growth, the firm’s portfolio of work in shale formations now includes clients in the Marcellus, Bakken, Barnett, Eagle Ford, Fayetteville, Haynesville, Utica, and Woodford plays, as well as those with a presence in the Permian Basin.

About Burleson LLP
Burleson LLP has earned a reputation as the energy law firm the energy industry goes to. It has grown significantly in recent years with over 85 attorneys and offices in Houston, San Antonio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Serving clients in the upstream and midstream segments, the firm provides counsel to oil and gas producers, transportation companies, storage and processing businesses, and energy service providers. Burleson’s far-reaching experience includes mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; finance; private equity; venture capital; securities; corporate governance and compliance; patents and intellectual property; title review; real estate; litigation; and bankruptcy/restructuring, land use, and environmental law. For further information, visit www.burlesonllp.com.

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Iran's Parliament Accuses Ahmadinejad of Violating Law

- Iran's Parliament Accuses Ahmadinejad of Violating Law

Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

Iran's internal row escalated Wednesday as the parliament filed a brief in court accusing the president of violating the law by making himself caretaker of the oil ministry.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week dismissed oil minister Massoud Mirkazemi and took over the portfolio himself, which would have also made him rotating chairman at the OPEC meeting in Vienna.

The constitutional watchdog Guardian Council rejected the move as illegal and said he could not run the oil ministry as caretaker.

Although Ahmadinejad reportedly gave in and dropped the trip to Vienna, the parliament said he had violated the law and sent it to the judiciary for further investigation.

The president's plan to trim the cabinet, especially merge the oil ministry with the energy ministry, led to widespread criticism in parliament.

Ahmadinejad has also been involved in a row with the clergy and conservative faction over his close aides.

The aides were branded as a "deviant current" and accused of undermining the Islamic ruling system in Iran and the authority of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Copyright 2011 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH

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More Gas Wells for Southwest Virginia?

More Gas Wells for Southwest Virginia?

Monday, March 28, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

by  Debra McCown, Bristol Herald Courier, Va.

 

Another county might soon be added to the list of those producing natural gas in Southwest Virginia: Washington. But only if the county will change its zoning ordinance to allow it.

The Virginia Gas and Oil Board has approved the creation of two drilling units and forced pooling orders for the first of four proposed gas wells in the Benhams area of Washington County.

Forced pooling is a process authorized by Virginia law that allows gas companies to drill even without leases from all affected property owners and that provides the uncooperative owners a default one-eighth royalty. The system is the subject of a set of class-action federal lawsuits in which coalfield landowners claim that gas companies benefit at the expense of citizens -- and that promised payouts are not always delivered.

Charlie Bartlett, a geological consultant who's long advocated for Washington County's gas potential, said he also has long advocated for landowners getting their rightful royalties when gas is produced from beneath their land, and he's making it a point to go about the project in Washington County the right way.

He also said that Washington County could ultimately have many more gas wells.

"If those [first ones] are successful, it will lead to a couple of dozen wells," Bartlett said. "So basically we're hoping for the establishment of a new gas field in Washington County."

Abingdon-based Southeast Land and Mineral wants to drill the proposed wells in an area about a mile north of Benhams, Bartlett said, about five miles north of Bristol and eight miles northwest of Abingdon. He also said the county has gas development potential in the area "between about the North Fork of the Holston and about Route 700."

Were Washington County to enact a severance tax, each well could generate thousands of dollars in revenue, Bartlett said, not to mention thousands in royalties for landowners and the creation of jobs.

"We're hoping that we can make them [Southeast Land and Mineral] some money, make the landowners some money, make the county some money and make the state some money, and everybody will be happy," Bartlett said.

Regarding the concerns raised by the federal lawsuits, Bartlett said he does not anticipate any effects on his project -- except the possible assurance that landowners would get fairer treatment under the law.

First, however, the project, financed by a coal investor from Kentucky, must hurdle the zoning ordinance that currently prohibits natural gas drilling in Washington County. And if the county agrees to change the ordinance to allow drilling, that would open the county for any gas company to operate.

"It would be sort of ridiculous for us to use gas from other places and not allow gas to be drilled here," Bartlett said.

Bartlett said he's run into some skepticism from county zoning officials. But Odell Owens, the county supervisor who represents the district where the wells are proposed, said it's an idea worth exploring.

"If we're sitting on natural gas that the landowners can benefit from extracting, and also if it can serve as a revenue source for the county, we have to look at it," Owens said, adding that experts likely will be asked to speak before the board.

While Owens said the county's groundwater resources are precious, he suggested that if drilling can be done safely -- protecting that natural resource -- he'd be supportive.

County Administrator Mark Reeter said he doesn't know why the county's zoning ordinance doesn't mention -- and therefore doesn't allow -- drilling, and county officials are just beginning to research what gas drilling is about.

At a Feb. 22 meeting of the Washington County Board of Supervisors -- more than six months after the county's Board of Zoning Appeals affirmed a decision denying permission to drill -- a man representing the company came to extol the virtues of gas production.

"We need to get all the energy we can from beneath the soils of the U.S. instead of being held hostage," Gus Sorensen of Bristol told the board members. "I hope that any sort of rules and regulations can be taken care of so we can extract this energy."

At a county board meeting last week, Damascus resident Judith McBride spoke in opposition to the zoning change that would allow drilling, citing potential risks to water supplies from wastewater disposal. Originally from Pennsylvania, McBride compared the impact of drilling on her family farm back home to the effects of strip mining.

In Abingdon, long an economic center for the coal and gas-producing region of Southwest Virginia and home to many who moved away from the environmental downside of life in coal country, it's not clear yet how residents will react to the proposal.

However, there is no coal -- only gas -- in Washington County.

And, Bartlett said, he has no intention of drilling near the town of Abingdon. Plus, he said, the county, through its zoning ordinance, could restrict drilling to certain areas.