Reply #11: Jeff first big case breaking - illegal oil well plugging by Exxon

[sonias]

AAS 7/17/09
Land commissioner: Exxon’s "illegal" oil well plugging could lead to $1 billion in fines

By Chuck Lindell | Friday, July 17, 2009, 02:50 PM

UPDATE: The Texas Railroad Commission today sent this letter to Exxon directing the corporation to respond to Patterson’s allegations in writing by July 31. The letter, by agency general counsel Lindil Fowler Jr., said no action would be taken "pending receipt of Exxon Mobil’s response."

Accusing Exxon Corp. of sabotaging South Texas oil wells and then lying about it to the state, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has asked the Railroad Commission to launch an investigation that, he says, could lead to fines topping $1 billion.

Patterson said Exxon wastefully and maliciously clogged the wells in the early 1990s after pulling out of a Refugio County oilfield in a royalty dispute with the landowners — heirs of Thomas O’Connor, who arrived in Texas as a penniless Irish immigrant and died as the state’s richest man in 1887.

Seems like an opportunity to respond to the case.
:hi:

Sonia