Tom Shepstone, Enery Indepth Campaign Director, calls the bus tour a "stunt" and wonders aloud if it
was connected with Sean Lennon releasing an album . . . . . . typically vacuous speech from the opposition with no basis for substantive argument.
Newsflash Mr. Shepstone:
Ms. Ono, Mr. Lennon, and Ms. Sarandon need not orchestrate some kind of stunt for publicity . . . they are all well-known celebrities, connected, financially wealthy, and still very much in the public eye.
Arun Gandhi said it best: "We have to recognize that we are
committing violence against nature, against resources, against environment, and eventually this is going to destroy us, destroy humanity."
Thanks! to Ms. Ono, Ms. Sarandon, Mr. Lennon, and Mr. Gandhi for your genuine fractivism! Please know that you would be greatly WELCOMED should you ever wish to visit Texas and see what's happening in our state ~
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Gas Industry CEO Entitlement, Luxury, and Lack of Ethics
Chesapeake CEO McClendon steps down after year of tumult
Aubrey McClendon will step down as chief executive after a tumultuous year in which a series of Reuters investigations triggered civil and criminal probes of the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.
Report from Reuters is HERE
*********
A person familiar with the terms of McClendon's departure said it was being treated as "termination without cause," ENTITLING the CEO to some of the most generous benefits laid out in an employment contract that details a wide range of severance scenarios.
McClendon is ENTITLED to total compensation of about $47 million. That figure includes $11.7 million in total cash compensation based on McClendon's salary and bonus, which will be paid out over a period of four years. It also includes restricted stock awards already given to McClendon that have a value of $33.5 million, the person familiar with the compensation package said.
He is also ENTITLED to deferred compensation of about $800,000 and personal use of corporate jets that could be worth up to $1 million over four years, the person said.
Huffington Post article is HERE
**********
From 2012:
The lavish and leveraged life of Aubrey McClendon
According to internal documents reviewed by Reuters, the unit's accountants, engineers and supervisors handled about $3 million of personal work for McClendon in 2010 alone. Among other tasks, the unit's controller once helped coordinate the repair of a McClendon house that was damaged by hailstones.
Fourteen miles south, at Will Rogers World Airport, Chesapeake leases a fleet of planes that shuttle executives to oil and gas fields -- and the McClendon family to holiday destinations. On one trip, the clan took flights to Amsterdam and Paris that cost $108,000; McClendon counted the trip as a business expense. In another case, Chesapeake logs show, nine female friends of McClendon's wife flew to Bermuda in 2010 without any McClendons aboard. The cost: $23,000.
Closer to home, McClendon pursues another of his passions: the Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA franchise in which he owns a 19 percent stake. As with other assets, McClendon has melded his Thunder interest with Chesapeake business. The energy company signed a $36 million sponsorship deal, and it pays up to $4 million annually to brand the stadium Chesapeake Energy Arena.
What hasn't been previously disclosed is that McClendon mortgaged his future proceeds from the team to secure two bank loans. The AKM unit, the jet flights and the Thunder relationship are part of the lavish but leveraged lifestyle that McClendon has built through Chesapeake, America's second-largest natural gas producer.
From the 111-acre corporate campus that he shaped with a meticulous eye for detail, McClendon has intertwined his personal financial interests with those of the publicly traded corporation he runs to a far greater degree than shareholders may realize, according to interviews, public records and hundreds of pages of internal Chesapeake documents reviewed by Reuters.
McClendon, 52, has put longtime friends on the Chesapeake board and showered them with compensation. Restaurants he has co-owned occupy buildings owned by the energy company. A Chesapeake executive has handled the CEO's personal land and oil- and gas-well transactions.
Few outsiders are privy to the sophisticated universe of services that Chesapeake provides McClendon.
Read more HERE
*******************
Click image for larger view:
Source: POLLUTERWATCH.COM
Aubrey McClendon will step down as chief executive after a tumultuous year in which a series of Reuters investigations triggered civil and criminal probes of the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.
Report from Reuters is HERE
*********
A person familiar with the terms of McClendon's departure said it was being treated as "termination without cause," ENTITLING the CEO to some of the most generous benefits laid out in an employment contract that details a wide range of severance scenarios.
McClendon is ENTITLED to total compensation of about $47 million. That figure includes $11.7 million in total cash compensation based on McClendon's salary and bonus, which will be paid out over a period of four years. It also includes restricted stock awards already given to McClendon that have a value of $33.5 million, the person familiar with the compensation package said.
He is also ENTITLED to deferred compensation of about $800,000 and personal use of corporate jets that could be worth up to $1 million over four years, the person said.
Huffington Post article is HERE
**********
From 2012:
The lavish and leveraged life of Aubrey McClendon
According to internal documents reviewed by Reuters, the unit's accountants, engineers and supervisors handled about $3 million of personal work for McClendon in 2010 alone. Among other tasks, the unit's controller once helped coordinate the repair of a McClendon house that was damaged by hailstones.
Fourteen miles south, at Will Rogers World Airport, Chesapeake leases a fleet of planes that shuttle executives to oil and gas fields -- and the McClendon family to holiday destinations. On one trip, the clan took flights to Amsterdam and Paris that cost $108,000; McClendon counted the trip as a business expense. In another case, Chesapeake logs show, nine female friends of McClendon's wife flew to Bermuda in 2010 without any McClendons aboard. The cost: $23,000.
Closer to home, McClendon pursues another of his passions: the Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA franchise in which he owns a 19 percent stake. As with other assets, McClendon has melded his Thunder interest with Chesapeake business. The energy company signed a $36 million sponsorship deal, and it pays up to $4 million annually to brand the stadium Chesapeake Energy Arena.
What hasn't been previously disclosed is that McClendon mortgaged his future proceeds from the team to secure two bank loans. The AKM unit, the jet flights and the Thunder relationship are part of the lavish but leveraged lifestyle that McClendon has built through Chesapeake, America's second-largest natural gas producer.
From the 111-acre corporate campus that he shaped with a meticulous eye for detail, McClendon has intertwined his personal financial interests with those of the publicly traded corporation he runs to a far greater degree than shareholders may realize, according to interviews, public records and hundreds of pages of internal Chesapeake documents reviewed by Reuters.
McClendon, 52, has put longtime friends on the Chesapeake board and showered them with compensation. Restaurants he has co-owned occupy buildings owned by the energy company. A Chesapeake executive has handled the CEO's personal land and oil- and gas-well transactions.
Few outsiders are privy to the sophisticated universe of services that Chesapeake provides McClendon.
Read more HERE
*******************
Click image for larger view:
Source: POLLUTERWATCH.COM
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Designer Landscaping or Au Naturel?
Quote
from Cassie King, Urban Site Planner, Chesapeake Energy:
"The public does not know I exist, the public doesn't know that we have someone that does landscaping . . . having to put trees around a well site seems like, it's a little bit different . . .
it's about making sure that we screen it properly and that the people that are walking by it
don't even know that it's a drill site . . . it's something that melds into the surrounding environment . . . the industry has decided that we don't just need to come in and drill, that we need to be good neighbors and that we need to go above and beyond for everyone because we're going to be here for awhile. I'm Cassie King, I'm a landscape designer and I'm powering progress in the Barnett."
RRC reporter agrees with you, Ms. King, that the public does not know you exist, as evidenced by the stark absence of "designer landscaping" around the Chesapeake Day site on Ragland Road in SE Arlington.
According to the city, Chesapeake did not comply with the landscaping and fencing requirements per the amended ordinance of November, 2011, because the wells were drilled prior to that date . . . the city claims they are attempting to get Chesapeake to comply and that masonry walls should be up in the next few months.
** Curious why gas operators are given such broad allowance for non-compliance, while general citizens are expected to follow the law and all the rules . . .
No word on the landscaping, which would be a welcome change, but no matter how beautiful the trees and shrubbery, no matter how talented the design landscapers,
no matter how high the wall - they cannot conceal the fracking truth.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Scenes from a monster gas well site
And here is the lovely bonus of gang graffiti . . . which likely does not translate to "Property of Chesapeake" . . .
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Smitherman: TribLive December 13, 2012
Barry Smitherman, Railroad Commission Chairman's game of duck, dodge, & defend (aka: justify the means @ any cost):
Translation: Unethical conflicts of interest and collusion are trumped by "for the sake of campaign finance" . . .
Here is a 1:61 clip from the interview:
Translation: Unethical conflicts of interest and collusion are trumped by "for the sake of campaign finance" . . .
Here is a 1:61 clip from the interview:
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Introducing . . .
Welcome to the Ragland Road Chronicle . . . reports and commentary on general issues related to gas drilling operations, and more specifically the Barnett Shale, the Chesapeake drill site on Ragland Road, and multiple wells within a one-mile radius of that site.
Ragland Road is located in far southeast Arlington in Tarrant County just south of Debbie Lane and west of Highway 360.
According to a reported published in the Fort Worth Star Telegram in 2010, the first six wells drilled at the Ragland site had been average or above average in production.
But, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon described the seventh well in this way:
"It's a monster!"
The well is the biggest of the thousands of producing wells in the Barnett Shale, based on average daily production for a one-month period, according to Gene Powell, publisher of the Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter.
Allegedly, the Arlington well's producing life will be "probably greater than 50 years."
Among those who are happy with the "monster" well is Glenn Day of Arlington, a real estate appraiser who, along with 13 relatives, leased Chesapeake 128 acres site that had been acquired by his great-grandfather, probably in the late 1800s. The family property is zoned commercial, and Day said he expects eventually to sell it for commercial development.
The natural gas industry has environmental challenges to meet in urban drilling, "and I think they will meet them," Day said, adding that Chesapeake has "been good to work with."
____________
RRC reporter finds it noteworthy that those who so solidarily sing the praises of the gas operators and industry, without question or skepticism, are always those who are either (a) firmly entrenched in their uncompromising and/or misguided and/or uninformed political mindsets, and/or (b) happily lining their financial nests with fracking-tainted money.
Source: http://www.summitmidstream.com/docs/Kimball_Hill_Monster_11110.pdf
Ragland Road is located in far southeast Arlington in Tarrant County just south of Debbie Lane and west of Highway 360.
According to a reported published in the Fort Worth Star Telegram in 2010, the first six wells drilled at the Ragland site had been average or above average in production.
But, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon described the seventh well in this way:
"It's a monster!"
The well is the biggest of the thousands of producing wells in the Barnett Shale, based on average daily production for a one-month period, according to Gene Powell, publisher of the Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter.
Allegedly, the Arlington well's producing life will be "probably greater than 50 years."
Among those who are happy with the "monster" well is Glenn Day of Arlington, a real estate appraiser who, along with 13 relatives, leased Chesapeake 128 acres site that had been acquired by his great-grandfather, probably in the late 1800s. The family property is zoned commercial, and Day said he expects eventually to sell it for commercial development.
The natural gas industry has environmental challenges to meet in urban drilling, "and I think they will meet them," Day said, adding that Chesapeake has "been good to work with."
____________
RRC reporter finds it noteworthy that those who so solidarily sing the praises of the gas operators and industry, without question or skepticism, are always those who are either (a) firmly entrenched in their uncompromising and/or misguided and/or uninformed political mindsets, and/or (b) happily lining their financial nests with fracking-tainted money.
Source: http://www.summitmidstream.com/docs/Kimball_Hill_Monster_11110.pdf
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