Pennsylvania Offers 32,000 Acres of State Land for Drilling Leases

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Wellsboro Gazette (Nov 18):
Marcellus Shale, climate change, money, politics and the environment

Pennsylvania is offering state-owned land for lease to energy companies interested in drilling in the Marcellus Shale. According to the article:

Monday, the secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), John Quigley, announced that six tracts of land are being offered for lease. The lease offering amounts to 31,967 acres.

Nearly 22,000 of the acres for lease lie in Tioga and Potter counties.

The 31,967 acres represents 1.5% of the total amount of state-owned forest land, a very small fraction.

5 Comments

  1. How about leases or permits on State Game Lands?
    Some former property owners still have gas/oil/mineral rights on land now owned by the cash-strapped PA Game Commission. Timber and coal revenue sources on these lands are no longer a prime source of income. Will drilling now be permitted or leased out by the Game Commission. How will the mineral rights owned by the heirs be addressed if drilling happens?

  2. dagwood: The short answer is, I don’t know. I do see a lot of chatter in the press about PA leasing public lands. I generally do not cover it in MDN simply because whatever the state does or does not do with public land doesn’t often affect private landowners, and the private landowner is my “beat” for MDN. I was not aware of the issues about mineral rights owned by individuals on public lands as you’ve pointed out. I’ll keep an eye out and write about it if the issue comes up in the press in the future. Thanks for commenting.

  3. Jim-I did get in touch with the DCNR a week or so ago. Was informed that whatever I did with our mineral rights was AOK with the Game Commission as they were familiar with drilling operaions on GC lands and there was “no problem”. A sigh of relief here! Now all I need is an outfit to pick up the lease from me. thanks..Dagwood.