Normally drillers eschew drilling under cities or villages as a practical matter. Where do you put a drilling rig? What about traffic clogging up local streets? What if you can’t get everyone (or almost everyone) to sign? And why work to sign several hundred leases for a one square mile drilling unit with all of the deed research, negotiations, etc. that come with it, when you can sign leases with three or four people (farmers with lots of acreage) in a single unit?
The prospect of dealing with hundreds of landowners is not stopping Antero Resources (see Antero Resources Goes “All In” on Marcellus/Utica) from offering the residents of Barnesville (Belmont County), OH the same deal they struck last year to lease village-owned land: $5,700 per acre as a signing bonus, and 20% royalties on production.
