Landowner's get stiffed on energy company royalty payments

[Earth_First]

At the end of 2011, Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies, was teetering on the brink of failure.

Its legendary chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, was being pilloried for questionable deals, its stock price was getting hammered and the company needed to raise billions of dollars quickly.

In the months that followed, Chesapeake executed an adroit escape, raising nearly $5 billion with a previously undisclosed twist: By gouging many rural landowners out of royalty payments they were supposed to receive in exchange for allowing the company to drill for natural gas on their property.

“I got the check out of the mail… I saw what the gross was,” said Drake, a third-generation Pennsylvania farmer whose monthly royalty payments for the same amount of gas plummeted from $5,300 in July 2012 to $541 last February.  

http://www.propublica.org/article/chesapeake-energys-5-billion-shuffle?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1394713331

[yourout]

1. When you shake hands with the devil don't be shocked when you get....

scortched palms.

[elehhhhna]

2. nat gas prices hit the floor

they get a royalty based on the amount and price of gas extracted