Gas Leases

Make copies, keep files and think about your future were three mantras recited Sunday in yet another local mineral rights meeting.
[Read more →]

The Fulton County Extension Office will be hosting an educational event aimed at discussing the ins and outs of residential gas leasing on Wednesday, July 30.

To be held at Fulton Theatre, the workshop for landowners who may be involved with future gas leasing will include several keynote speakers to touch on both the advantages and disadvantages of signing a natural gas lease.
[Read more →]

The West Virginia Farm Bureau has been sponsoring meetings about gas and oil leases in several parts of the Mountain State. The message being promoted is a sound one — property owners should be careful before they sign anything.

While the Eastern Panhandle isn’t exactly Natural Gas Country, a number of property owners have been contacted by oil and gas landmen in recent years. As far as we’re aware, there’s never been a successful, producing gas or oil well drilled in the Morgan County vicinity, but who knows what the future may hold?

The thing to remember is not to let promises of big bucks cloud your thinking. Read the small print about how many wells can be drilled on your property and how you will be paid.

Last year, a Roane County jury delivered a $405 million verdict against gas interests for not paying $134 million in gas royalties that were due nearly 9,000 landowners. After initially showing sympathy for the gas companies, Governor Joe Manchin stopped talking about it. Someone must have reminded him that most of the 9,000 who were shortchanged are state residents and voters. This year, the West Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the case on appeal, so the verdict stands.

Signing a gas and oil lease is serious business that could affect your own use of your property. Don’t let anyone pressure you into a rash decision.

One nice thing that has come out of this gas lease boom is the number of people and groups who have gone out of their way to try and help educate people. With that said here’s another article full of great advice for people considering leasing their land.

Get all the facts before signing a gas lease.

That’s the message being spread by the Pennsylvania Landowner Alliance (PALA), which has been holding a series of meetings to educate property owners on how to obtain the best lease terms with gas companies.

The PALA advises all people not to sign a gas lease until they understand the legalities.

Jason Mendicino of PALA recently spoke to a group of landowners at the Fayette County Fairgrounds.

Mendicino said education and organization is key when negotiating with gas companies, noting that there is power in numbers.

The PALA is composed of an alliance of landowners who own the gas and oil rights to their property and have joined forces to increase their negotiation power.

“The more the merrier,” Mendicino said, noting that leverage increases considerably when property owners band together.

[Read more →]

This story comes from The Daily Citizen and outlines the results of not getting professional advice when dealing with leasing your land for gas:

Kathryn Hastings of Plainview regrets not exempting her best property from the mineral rights lease she signed with Chesapeake Energy four years ago. As a result, she gave the natural gas giant permission to locate a well anywhere it wanted and that’s just what is happening.

Located near Highway 13 and Hastings Road next to the old missile base, the property is already the site of three two-acre lots and seven one-acre lots sold in 1977. In the 1980s, Hastings planned to use the adjoining seven acres for two 1.5-acre lots and four one-acre lots. That plan has been scuttled now that Chesapeake has notified her it plans to build two natural gas wells on one pad there.

“They say they’re only taking 3.5 acres,” Hastings said. “As far as I’m concerned, that will be a washout. They’re going to ruin the whole seven acres.”
*

When Hastings signed the lease, she had the right to exempt any property, and Chesapeake also had the right to not sign the lease if property upon which they wanted to build was exempted.

“I did it because I was ignorant,” Hastings said. ‘I’ve lived out there for 50 years and gas companies came by and paid $1 an acre. When they came by and offered me $50 an acre I took it.”

Hastings leased 79 acres for $50 an acre up-front money, receiving $3,950, and 1/16 royalty. She did not consult an attorney at the time she signed her lease.

[Read more →]

Gas leasing and the rumors about it are more talked about in country circles than today’s sky-high corn prices. But Pennsylvania Ag Secretary Dennis Wolff points out in his weekly column, “While natural gas development presents a tremendous economic opportunity, it also comes with the potential for many unconsidered issues.”

Knowing those issues, and planning accordingly, can mean the difference between prospering from a good opportunity and having to live with a decision made in haste, he warns. “I urge farmers to plan ahead and consult with knowledgeable professionals before signing a lease. The relatively small cost of planning properly will pay dividends throughout the life of the lease.”
[Read more →]

When domestic gas prices spiked during an energy crisis in the early 1980s, prospectors came into the western part of the Quad- state region to acquire drilling rights. With oil at $130 a barrel and natural gas prices headed above $11 per thousand cubic feet, they may return.

Exploration and production companies are looking for huge reserves of natural gas in Marcellus black shale in the northern Appalachian region. New drilling technologies for extracting gas from shale, coupled with historically high oil and natural gas prices, have triggered a land rush for drilling rights.

[Read more →]

Alice Berger over at the blog Going Green has a post up regarding her concerns about gas leasing/drilling and it’s relation to the environment and is looking for input.

In January we received an unexpected letter from a gas company, asking us if we wanted to sign a lease. We ignored it. Then the news exploded around here, with numbers flying around fast and furious. Our heads began to spin with all the possibilities.

One thing we kept thinking was - how will this affect the environment? We love our nice little property, and we didn’t want to screw it up. Unfortunately, if we don’t sign a lease, we’ll just miss out on the money, since our neighbors have all signed. Our peaceful little area will be forever changed.

I know we have a lot of readers, so why not stop over and talk to her: Going Green: Natural Gas Drilling.

The Haynesville Shale is likely to become America’s largest natural gas field and perhaps the fourth largest in the world, Chesapeake Energy Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon disclosed Wednesday in a conference call with its newest partner, Plains Exploration and Production Co.
Advertisement

Oklahoma-based Chesapeake is so committed to development of the deep underground natural gas reserve spread across several parishes in northwest Louisiana and into east Texas that it so far has invested $2.5 billion, McClendon said.

[Read more →]

It was a year ago, when men from the oil and gas companies knocked on the door of Stephen Woloszyn’s dairy farm in the small Cattaraugus County village of Delevan.

They wanted to drill for natural gas on his property.

“They showed up at my house, and told me who they were,” said Woloszyn, whose farm has been in the family for more than 50 years. “I had two different outfits asking me for a lease.”

Soaring oil and natural gas prices have the industry turning over every rock in search of promising new deposits. But what’s really captured the imagination is a giant natural gas reservoir running beneath four states, including New York’s Southern Tier.

[Read more →]