SWEPI Puts 9,346 Acres of PA Marcellus Leases Up for Auction
From time to time exploration and production companies (aka "drillers" or "producers") decide to sell leases for acreage they don't plan to drill on or under. Typically when a new play is discovered there is a bit of a land rush as drillers begin leasing. In the Marcellus, a driller may decide to concentrate on a specific county in the state, as Cabot Oil & Gas did with Susquehanna County in northeastern PA. Cabot happened to hit the jackpot with some of the most productive gas wells on the planet. Other times, when the leasing is done and drilling has begun drillers begin to figure out where they want to spend their money. It takes a lot of money to drill a Marcellus well--on the order of $7 million. Eventually drillers find there are isolated tracts of acreage they've leased that don't fit with their future plans, so they either horse trade and swap, or perhaps put the acreage leases up for public auction. Such is the case with Shell's SWEPI subsidiary. They recently posted three largish tracts of leased acreage up for auction--two in Tioga County, PA and one in Potter County, PA. Here's a description of the land SWEPI is trying to dump...
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