Chesapeake Raising Capital by Mortgaging Mineral Rights

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

August 3, 2011 | 1:17 PM

It seems like some residents of Bradford County got a shock when they learned that Chesapeake Energy had mortgaged the mineral rights beneath their property. The Towanda Daily Review published this article on Tuesday. Standing Stone Township’s former treasurer Diane Ward told Bradford County Commissioners that local banks had refused to re-finance some residents’ homes because of Chesapeake’s actions. Apparently, the banks did not seperate the land rights from the mineral rights. Chesapeake mortgaged the mineral rights of more than 1000 properties in Bradford County to borrow $5 billion dollars. Chesapeake issued a statement that the mortgage on the mineral rights should not affect the property owner’s ability to re-finance their homes.