Natural Gas: "It's American. It's Affordable. It's Abundant"

Hundreds of people poured into the sanctuary and filled the pews at New World United Methodist Church in Arlington, Texas last night.  There were no hymns sung or prayers recited.  The mostly mature audience was subdued.  It's a shame the Singing nuns weren't here! 

Lynda Gearheart, a woman who appears more like a high school English teacher than an oil & gas spokesperson, began the Chesapeake sermon with the "divide and conquer" strategy.  Questions would be answered after the meeting at separate tables in the back of the room since she pointed out that, "Leases have specificity."  During the presentation Chesapeake representatives surrounded the sanctuary ~ standing at attention like soldiers ~ carefully watching and monitoring the crowd.  The Arlington police were also there.

Ms. Gearheart's statement about natural gas was simply amazing.  

"It's American.  It's Affordable.  It's Abundant."

Seems she left out the part about about Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Exports.  That's where our neighborhoods get turned into dangerous industrial mining zones in order to help China cut their dirty coal emissions.  Japan and other countries that are not free-trade partners with the United States also want our gas.  The Feds recently approved the third LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana with 19 more applications pending.  

The remainder of the meeting was mostly spent talking about the money and all the good it's doing for organizations such as Mission Arlington and the Boys and Girls Club.  She rattled off some very impressive figures which have spared us of a tax increase.  But at what cost?  When Ms. Gearheart stated how proud she is that industry came along at such a time as this, we couldn't help but wonder if she was comparing herself to the Biblical Esther.   

We find it curious that this issue is still about the money, yet the hundreds of people in that sanctuary have not received a single royalty payment from the Geenman 6H well despite the fact that it was drilled in August 2011.  Ms. Gearheart told the community to look for their division orders in the mail soon.  She also mentioned that Chesapeake needs to conduct *title searches dating back to the 1800's.  

The Railroad Commission of Texas shows this well as an *unperfed completion and a *shut in (Oil) producer.  Curiously, their records show NO gas gathering pipeline for this well, yet we thought we heard Ms. Gearheart say that the pipeline is installed and the gas is flowing.  We also heard her say, "the pipeline company is working to secure the right of way."  That is very confusing, but when we raised our hand during the brief question session at the end, she did not call on us.  At this time we will defer to the Railroad Commission's records indicating that there is no pipeline connected to this well.  If there is no pipeline, we will assume this gas is not yet being sold to market and there will not be any royalty checks arriving in the mail anytime soon. 

To summarize this farce of a meeting, we learned that Chesapeake still uses the same M.O.  There was nothing democratic about it.  Sadly, other than a police officer, we did not see a single representative from the City of Arlington, despite the fact that Chesapeake and other gas operators have changed our City's infrastructure forever.  We doubt Jesus was at this meeting either.  If he were, we bet he would have turned over every table in the back of that sanctuary.

*Code Language: 

*Unperfed Completion:  don't have all the leases signed.  
*Shut in:  don't have the pipeline hooked up yet.

*Conducting Title Searches dating back to the 1800's:   It's going to be a while before you receive your royalty check.

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