Gas Lease

[Lucky111]

Has anyone from Pa. recently been approched about signing a gas lease? I live in Lycoming county and the oil companies are getting pretty aggressive.

[larrymeyer]

Originally Posted by Lucky111

Has anyone from Pa. recently been approched about signing a gas lease? I live in Lycoming county and the oil companies are getting pretty aggressive.

I've been hit by the Land Man a few times. I won't sign away my land and for my 119 aces their up to $1500 an acre. Some things to watch out for are :

1) Time of lease for me they wanted a 10 year lease
2) Amount of return their giving 1/8 of the profits however your in a pool with other land owners so you won't realize 1/8. In other states their giving 50% of the profits
3) They will build roads though your property and trucks can use them 24/7
4) They have the right to put a tank farm on your property as storage
5) It's income may effect your social security and Medicare
6) They use brine water to bring the gas to the surface. If it leaks or spills the deer will love you but nothing will grow there as they salted the land
7) Unless the original company is on the lease and it states they are responsible for any damage you may be screwed. If they turn over the lease to a third party that third party or straw party can go bankrupted and your left holding the bag for environmental damage
8) The rigs I saw required 5 aces of ground to put up. Not like the old rigs that only required 1 acre. But the new rigs go down 2 miles and not 3800 feet

Up here the average their offering is $750.00 an acre most people will sign for that. The land man is buying acreage at that price and selling to the companies for a lot more then that. The company land man who's been after me is from Chesapeake my neighbors have been getting offers from other companies non of my neighbors have signed or will sign.

There is a meeting in Thompson with a lawyer tomorrow at two o'clock across from Hobs Market. If I find out anything else I'll post it here

[Joe Smith]

Had to run the last one off the property. Not interested in the least...

[Lucky111]

Larrymeyer thanks, Chesapeake is the same company, thier have been three wells drilled in the county and a fourth one just started. The first three two have been sucessful and the third not yet finished yet. Years ago i had two farms with gas leases and they were never drilled, at that time they paid about 2-3 dollars and acre. (kind of a joke). Chesapeake started at 40-50 a acre and now is about 250. and acre. We have a local lawyer who goes all over a several state area advising land owner in dealing with these companies. My land I have left is worth a small fortune no really sure what to do. (Some homes over one million dollars each, I know they would not be to happy)

[Mike45]

My wife and I got the same offer as you guys are talking about. I heard that they destroy your land and when done, just leave. A neighbor also warned us that we would receive these offers. Also got a letter from a "timber management" company wanting to manage our timber. Last I saw, the timber was managing just fine on it's own. Likely the gas will too.
Throw the offer in the trash Lucky.
Thanks Larry, we will be waiting for anything else you can post.

Mike45

[larrymeyer]

A couple of other things I picked up today

1 The road or storage sheds they build on you property can be considered Improvements and may increase you property and school tax.
2 In order to get thought the shale they will blast ( Watch you windows and basement )
3 Some of the leases are already being sold to wildcatters or third parties

I'll keep posting as long as I get new information

[Lucky111]

Originally Posted by larrymeyer

A couple of other things I picked up today

1 The road or storage sheds they build on you property can be considered Improvements and may increase you property and school tax.
2 In order to get thought the shale they will blast ( Watch you windows and basement )
3 Some of the leases are already being sold to wildcatters or third parties

I'll keep posting as long as I get new information

The lawyer who was to be at the meeting you spoke of was his name Lester Greevy? He is a local lawyer who goes all over the state. Mr. Greevy claims no one should sign the agreement without 30 added amendments added to the original agreement. If I ever get to see what the 30 amendments are I will post them. Thanks for the information.

[Mike45]

Thanks Larry and Lucky for all the info. Hope nobody gets sucked into this situation...

Mike45

[tourrider]

Educate yourself on mineral leases. I say 10 years is way too Long !

I inheirited mineral rights from the old family ranch in texas when grampa died. He had sold the ranch and no one realized he keep the mineral rights.

We are sitting on the edge of the huge Barnett-Shale gas find and they have been punching holes like crazy over the last fiew years. A landman hunted me and my brothers down for leasing the rights. We had to turn them down a couple of times while we did some research.

We got the bonus price up and reduced the term to 3 years. I can see from the texas resource website that all the compnaies are making their way towards us. No permits pulled for our survey yet, and our lease expires this summer. We might be in line for another signing bonus. We'll be asking for more as they get closer.

Make sure the lease has ammentments for all uses including access roads, water wells, retention ponds, pump & compresser stations, and pipepline ROW (right of way). Also details about land reclaimation after any wells go online, and the last peice of equipment pulls out.

[larrymeyer]

Originally Posted by Lucky111

The lawyer who was to be at the meeting you spoke of was his name Lester Greevy? He is a local lawyer who goes all over the state. Mr. Greevy claims no one should sign the agreement without 30 added amendments added to the original agreement. If I ever get to see what the 30 amendments are I will post them. Thanks for the information.

No this lawyer was Cris Dutton from Broom In NY. At the meeting in Montrose when he started to speak the 6 land men who were there got up and walked out.

The amendments your talking about are from Jackie Root ( I believe thats her name ) . Mt neighbor has them and is suppose to e-mail them to me. If he does I'll post them. But when Chesapeake talk to him and he wanted them to add the 31 amendments to the lease they wouldn't agree to them. They the Amendments were to much in favor of the land owner. One I believe was leasing the stratus of the land IE if they went passed a certain depth they had to pay over or renegotiate the lease.

My neighbor is also drafting a letter to Sandra Majors to change the law which allows companies like Chesapeake to drill on a neighbors land and then drill horizontally into your land and at that point you get nothing.

One other thing I forgot to mention was if they put you in a pool the land doesn't have to be continuous so you can be in a pool miles away from where your at. And some of the pools they were talking about covered 10 miles. So the money from royalties would be shared with all the people in that 10 mile pool.

The group meeting I attended today it was decide to have another meeting when I get that information I'll passes it along. They were talking about having the lawyer from Broom there and also a geologist