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Chesapeake Energy Fined $2.1 Million For Under Reporting Gas

A picture of a natural gas extraction site in the shadow of a setting sun.
Chesapeake Energy

The federal government has fined one of the country’s largest energy producers more than $2.1 million for under-reporting natural gas production on Native American leases.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue issued Chesapeake Energy an order to restructure its accounting practices in order to correct unreported and misreported volumes on land leased by Native American individuals and tribes.

Paul Mussenden, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Natural Resources Revenue Management, said in a statement Chesapeake assured ONRR it had fixed the problem by 2012, but follow-up checks by the federal government found more uncorrected volume shortages in 2013.

“Correct royalty reports, especially on American Indian leases, are essential for ONRR to ensure all royalties are paid, to provide reliable data used by ONRR’s audit and compliance teams, and to provide accurate data to the American public,” Mussenden said in a statement. “Accordingly, the ONRR audit and enforcement teams will continue their vigilance in ensuring that companies timely comply with orders to correct erroneous data to avoid expending limited federal resources chasing correct information.”

The federal agency handed out more than $13 billion to states, tribes, and individual Native American mineral owners in fiscal year 2014.

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Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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