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What Were Landowners in Central VA Paid for a Lease Bonus?

We consider Virginia “northeast” as far as coverage goes on MDN. While the Marcellus skirts the very edge of the state and there’s very little Marcellus that would like ever get drilled in Virginia, there are other shale basins in the state, one of which is the Taylorsville Basin–south and east of Fredericksburg, VA. MDN told you in April that Shore Exploration has leased 84,000 acres in the Taylorsville Basin (see Virginia Inches Closer to Shale Drilling in Taylorsville Basin). We now know what they paid per acre for those leases (hint: not very much by Marcellus/Utica standards)…
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Virginia Inches Closer to Shale Drilling in Taylorsville Basin

For some time MDN has been watching the first stirrings of what may eventually be horizontal drilling and fracking in Virginia. But it’s not along the western fringes where the Marcellus layer is present. Instead, the attention has been in the eastern/central part of the state (see Fracking Finally on the Way in Virginia? Maybe Yes, Maybe No). Virginians, like Marylanders, New Yorkers and others that haven’t yet experienced the miracle of Marcellus Shale drilling have been fed a line of equine feces from fossil-fuel haters. Things like “It’ll contaminate yer water aquifers, man.”

We spotted an article about a very interesting meeting between Texas-based Shore Exploration and Production and area residents at a town hall meeting at the University of Mary Washington in Dahlgren (King George County), VA on Monday. From the article we learn that Shore has now leased 84,000 acres in the Taylorsville basin–south and east of Fredericksburg, VA. We also learn that the company’s CEO Ed DeJarnette, who presented at the meeting, is in ill-health and close to death. DeJarnette said he wants to use non-water-based hydraulic fracturing. His preference is to use nitrogen fracking (which is interesting to us). But DeJarnette, under heavy questioning, admitted Shore may sell the leases and he couldn’t guarantee whoever buys those leases will not use water-based fracking. Here is a report of the lively and interesting meeting from Monday…
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Energy Co Exec Gets in the Face of Virginia Anti-Driller

Shore Exploration and Production CEO Ed DeJarnette Jr. addressed a town hall style meeting at the University of Mary Washington in King George County, VA on Monday night (see our companion article). There were residents there who had honest questions and concerns about the potential for shale drilling and fracking in their neighborhood. And then there were the stock, knee-jerk, hackneyed anti-drillers, as there always are. You can usually spot them because they like to stick video cameras in your face, like Mary Trout (from King George, VA) likes to do. Apparently they’re so starved for attention they turn to posting boring videos on YouTube for their 15 seconds of fame.

When Mary tried to pester Ed DeJarnette with questions about fracking, he literally got in her face–so she couldn’t record what he was saying with her ubiquitous camera. Love it! We wish more pro-drillers would use that tactic–throw it right back at the opposition and “get in their face.” Here’s how it went Monday night…
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