[5] In December 2010, Chief sold 15 producing wells and 50,000 net acres in Pennsylvania to Exco Resources for $459 million.

[11][12] In October 2010, Trevor Rees-Jones contributed $50,000 to then-gubernatorial candidate and eventual winner Tom Corbett, which some believe was a payoff in exchange for no severance tax and the repeal of environmental policies created to protect the environment from natural gas drilling.

[16][17] In June 2011, the company was fined $180,000 by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for a hydraulic oil spill and the failure to maintain a drill pit at a natural gas well in Somerset County.

[20] In June 2010, a well blowout and fire at a Chief-owned site injured seven contractors in Moundsville, West Virginia, and burned for days.

No one from the emergency response crews had been given instruction on how to fight a well blowout and the burning site was found abandoned when the responders arrived.