Columbiana County, OH Sees Slowdown in Leasing – Good or Bad?
Leasing activity in Columbiana County, Ohio is slowing down. Is that a bad thing? Or a good thing?
Read More “Columbiana County, OH Sees Slowdown in Leasing – Good or Bad?”
-
-
Hilcorp Energy Leasing Utica Acreage in Mahoning County, OH
Hilcorp Energy is interested in drilling in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Specifically, they’re signing contracts and making offers in Mahoning County (northeastern Ohio).
Here are some of the lease offer deals they’ve recently made or signed:
Read More “Hilcorp Energy Leasing Utica Acreage in Mahoning County, OH”
-
Would Drillers be Interested in a Half Acre? Yep
You may not get rich as a landowner of a small plot of ground by leasing it for gas drilling, but depending on where you live, even if you own just a half acre of land, you may be able to participate in Marcellus or Utica Shale drilling. That’s what happened with Belmont County when they recently discovered the county owns a half acre plot of land they previously didn’t know they owned. Gulfport Energy made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Read More “Would Drillers be Interested in a Half Acre? Yep”
-
Energy Companies | Halcon Resources | Lease & Royalty Payments | Mahoning County | NCL Appalachian Partners | Ohio | Trumbull County
Halcon Resources Pays $194M for Old Leases in Trumbull County, OH
Bombshell: Halcon Resources Corp. is paying NCL Appalachian Partners $194 million (over $6,000 per acre) to take over land leases for drilling on 31,000 acres mostly in Trumbull County, OH (and about 3,000 acres in Mahoning County, OH). This is not money going to landowners but to the leaseholder, NCL. And it’s for old leases dating back to the 1960s.
By comparison, mass transfer of lease deals done by Chesapeake and others have been in the $1,000-$2,000 per acre range. But there is a difference: the lower-priced deals include a one or two percent royalty on anything produced going to the original leaseholder. Again, this is not landowner royalties, but leaseholder. It’s hard to follow the bouncing ball on this story.
The leases purchased by Halcon are not without potential problems (for Halcon) and opportunities (for landowners):
Read More “Halcon Resources Pays $194M for Old Leases in Trumbull County, OH”
-
Chesapeake Energy | Columbiana County | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Mahoning County | Ohio | Statewide OH | Trumbull County | Utica Shale
Chesapeake Buys 28K Acres of OH Leases from Everflow
MDN reported on Monday that Chesapeake Energy had purchased the rights to leases and had transferred ownership of those leases for more than 14,000 acres from two counties in Ohio—Trumbull and Mahoning (see this MDN story). We now know that’s only half of the number of acres they transferred. We now also know who they bought the rights from and how much they paid for those rights.
Read More “Chesapeake Buys 28K Acres of OH Leases from Everflow”
-
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Mahoning County | Ohio | Trumbull County
Chesapeake Transfers more than 14K Leases in 2 Ohio Counties
An excellent story in today’s Youngstown (OH) Business Journal covers the massive number of lease transfers taking place in Ohio—specifically in Trumbull and Mahoning counties. At the end of June, both counties received an order to transfer more than 7,000 existing oil and gas leases to a single lease for Chesapeake Energy—and that’s in each county!
Read More “Chesapeake Transfers more than 14K Leases in 2 Ohio Counties”
-
OH Dem Mark Okey Introduces Bait-and-Switch Bill on Leasing
Ohio State Rep. Mark Okey (Democrat) recently introduced a House Bill 493, which he calls the “Truth in Leasing Act.” It supposedly goes after “big oil and gas” and their “predatory” leasing practices. But when you read the bill, a fair amount of it has nothing to do with leases but instead creates new drilling rules (a copy of the bill is embedded below—you read it and see what you think).
In typical Democrat/Marxist fashion, Okey rails against “big oil” in his statement about the new legislation:
Read More “OH Dem Mark Okey Introduces Bait-and-Switch Bill on Leasing”
-
Campbell, OH Leases Town Land for $5K/20% to Hilcorp
The Campbell, Ohio council voted Monday to lease 167 owned by the town to Hilcorp Energy for $5,000 per acre and 20% royalties on any gas produced.
Read More “Campbell, OH Leases Town Land for $5K/20% to Hilcorp”
-
Chesapeake Seeks to Change Terms of OH Leases Already Signed
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Chesapeake Energy is attempting to change the terms of leases with Ohio landowners—after the leases were signed. One of the issues faced by Chesapeake is that they have signed, or purchased, a lot of leases in Ohio’s Utica Shale (and other shale plays for that matter). In Ohio, it amounts to leases for about 5% of Ohio’s total land area.In order to fulfill their end of the bargain, Chesapeake must drill wells on all that land within a certain period of time—usually within five years. At least one well must be drilled on a “unit,” usually defined as 640 acres of land, or one square mile. Multiple landowner properties are usually part of a single unit.
But Chesapeake has a problem: cash. They don’t have enough of it right now to drill all of those units to “hold” them. So they’re redefining the unit—they now want a unit to be two square miles in stead of one square mile.
Read More “Chesapeake Seeks to Change Terms of OH Leases Already Signed”
-
Wolf Creek School District Leases to PDC Energy for $3K-18%
At a Monday meeting, the Wolf Creek Local Board of Education in Waterford (Washington County), OH voted to lease the mineral rights under school district property for Utica Shale drilling to PDC Energy. The lease terms are $3,000 per acre signing bonus and 18% royalties. School district officials, however, do not want any active drilling on the property—only underneath the property.
Read More “Wolf Creek School District Leases to PDC Energy for $3K-18%”
-
Belmont, OH Attorney Sues Hess to Dissolve Lease
An attorney in Belmont County, Ohio—Rebecca Bench—is suing to end a lease deal she and her husband signed in 2008, originally with Mason Dixon Energy for $100 per acre. Mason Dixon later sold the lease to Hess Corp.
The $100 per acre Bench and her husband were paid is a fraction of recent transactions, some as high as $5,900 per acre. Bench says Mason Dixon was never registered to do business in Ohio, meaning the original contract was fraudulent.
Read More “Belmont, OH Attorney Sues Hess to Dissolve Lease”
-
Chesapeake Energy | Columbiana County | Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Mahoning County | Ohio
Salem, OH to Sign Lease Deal with Chesapeake for $7K+20%
The City of Salem, Ohio, which straddles both Columbiana and Mahoning counties, is due to sign a three-year oil and gas lease with Chesapeake Energy today for 381 acres of land owned by the city.
The deal calls for an initial $3,500 per acre signing bonus and 20% royalties, with an additional $3,500 per acre for a three-year extension. All told, it will be $7,000 per acre for a six-year lease—one of the highest amounts MDN has seen (if the three-year extension is exercised).
Read More “Salem, OH to Sign Lease Deal with Chesapeake for $7K+20%”
-
Columbiana County Lease with Chesapeake, Highest Bonus Ever
Columbiana County, OH has just signed a deal with DPS Penn (an agent for Chesapeake Energy) to lease 548 acres for Utica Shale drilling. And they astutely doubled their money from the original offer from DPS a year ago. The new terms of the deal, just signed, are for $5,850 per acre and a 20 percent royalty. Columbiana also negotiated the lease term down to three years. A typical lease is five years.The deal makes Columbiana breaks the record as the highest signing bonus granted to any government body for a Utica (or Marcellus) Shale lease deal.
Read More “Columbiana County Lease with Chesapeake, Highest Bonus Ever”
-
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | New York | Statewide NY
Victory for NY Landowners in Chesapeake Force Majeure Case
In a major victory for New York landowners, Attorney General Eric Schniederman’s office reached a settlement with Chesapeake Energy to allow 4,400+ landowners with a collective 264,000 acres to renegotiate old gas drilling leases that Chesapeake was attempting to extend using the “force majeure” clause. MDN has followed this story for more than a year (see this MDN story from May 2011 for history and background).As a brief background, a number of New York landowners—many of them in the Southern Tier area of New York—signed gas drilling leases in 2000 with small drilling companies. The leases had a 10-year term. Most of the landowners got $3 per acre as a signing bonus. Those leases, along with leases signed prior to 2000, were bought by Chesapeake in the mid-2000s. In 2009, Chesapeake sent letters to New York landowners invoking the force majeure clause, which is legalese for “we’re extending the contract term due to extenuating circumstances, which we believe is our right to do.” The extenuating circumstance? The moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing that was implemented by then-Gov. David Paterson in 2008.
Read More “Victory for NY Landowners in Chesapeake Force Majeure Case”
-
Brooke County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Equinor/Statoil | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Range Resources Corp | West Virginia
WV Couple Challenges Chesapeake Lease Renewal
A husband and wife in Brooke County, West Virginia are suing to have their 5 year-old lease, which is now expired and up for renewal, nullified so Chesapeake (now the owner of the lease) cannot automatically renew it as they are attempting to do.
Increasingly landowners who signed leases that are now expiring after a customary 5 year period face the same issue—and drillers are trying to lock them in under the terms of lease for a new period of time.
Here’s the story of Ramon and Lois Bowen:
Read More “WV Couple Challenges Chesapeake Lease Renewal”
-
Columbiana County | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio | Utica Shale
Columbiana County, OH Landowners Seek Minimum Royalty Law
A few weeks ago MDN highlighted a story about a couple living in Columbiana County, Ohio who were due to get more than $375,000 in lease payments from Chesapeake Energy for their 65 acres of property, but the deal fell through when Chesapeake discovered the land under the property was already locked into a decades-old lease by Columbia Gas Transmission. The couple is suing to be released from that contract (see this MDN story).
We have word today that other landowners from the same area also affected by the Columbia lease are trying a different tact: Pass a state law imposing minimum royalties.
Read More “Columbiana County, OH Landowners Seek Minimum Royalty Law”
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Chesapeake Energy is attempting to change the terms of leases with Ohio landowners—after the leases were signed. One of the issues faced by Chesapeake is that they have signed, or purchased, a lot of leases in Ohio’s Utica Shale (and other shale plays for that matter). In Ohio, it amounts to leases for about 5% of Ohio’s total land area.
Columbiana County, OH has just signed a deal with DPS Penn (an agent for Chesapeake Energy) to lease 548 acres for Utica Shale drilling. And they astutely doubled their money from the original offer from DPS a year ago. The new terms of the deal, just signed, are for $5,850 per acre and a 20 percent royalty. Columbiana also negotiated the lease term down to three years. A typical lease is five years.
In a major victory for New York landowners, Attorney General Eric Schniederman’s office reached a settlement with Chesapeake Energy to allow 4,400+ landowners with a collective 264,000 acres to renegotiate old gas drilling leases that Chesapeake was attempting to extend using the “force majeure” clause. MDN has followed this story for more than a year (see