Last November, MDN told you about a new landowner group in Lordstown, OH that had formed to negotiate with Halcon Resources who had recently purchased 20-50 year-old leases in the area, hoping to drill Utica wells on those properties (see Halcon Resources Responds to Lordstown, OH Landowners Group). The landowners, of course, want to renegotiate the leases to allow Utica drilling with updated safeguards and protections–horizontal drilling was not envisioned when the original leases were signed all those years ago. Halcon is willing to grant them an increase in royalty payments, but essentially told the landowners to sign the revised lease they were circulating or risk not getting a dime. The tone was very much take it or leave it.
MDN has no word on the status of those talks, but we do notice two things: Halcon has, since last November, applied for and received four Utica Shale drilling permits in Trumbull County; and, Halcon is planning to build a $70 million oil storage and rail-loading terminal in Lordstown…
