Ohio DMA Case Sheds Light on Surface vs Mineral Rights
How much of an effort is “enough” when a surface landowner in Ohio tries to locate the owner(s) of the belowground mineral rights under his or her land using the Dormant Mineral Act (DMA), with an eye toward reclaiming those rights? Is it enough to search the public record archive in only the county where the land is located? The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled in two cases to say no, it’s not enough to run a quick search in one county when attempting to locate mineral rights owners.
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Last week Pennsylvania issued 21 new shale well permits, with Snyder Brothers grabbing seven, PennEnergy Resources getting six, and Coterra Energy (formerly Cabot Oil & Gas) receiving five. In each case, the permits for each company were for a single well pad. Ohio issued just three new permits last week, two for Ascent Resources and one for Southwestern Energy. West Virginia finally came back to life, issuing seven new shale permits last week. Six of the WV permits were for Antero Resources, one for Southwestern Energy.
Holy smokes! What just happened? For months (and months and months) the cumulative number of weekly permits issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica has fluctuated from the low teens to perhaps 30 total on the upper end. Last week, from Jan. 17-23, an amazing 61 permits were issued to drill new shale wells. Double the usual. Wow! Pennsylvania issued 24 new permits, Ohio issued 9, and blow-the-doors-off-we’ve-never-seen-so-many-permits-issued-in-one-week for West Virginia, the Mountain State issued 28 new shale permits.
Economists are still analyzing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic from 2020, let alone assessing impacts from 2021. Cleveland State University researchers have run the numbers and have discovered something interesting. Of Ohio’s 88 counties, only 18 grew their economies in 2020. Of those 18, two counties stood head and shoulders above the rest for increases in economic activity. Both counties have something in common: Utica Shale drilling.
Earlier this month MDN exclusively broke the news that earlier this year (slipping under the radar) the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits to Powhatan Salt Company/Mountaineer NGL Storage for three planned solution mining wells in Monroe County (see 
On August 30, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits to Powhatan Salt Company/Mountaineer NGL Storage for three planned solution mining wells in Monroe County. The three salt caverns will store NGLs (natural gas liquids, mainly ethane) to potentially be used by ethane crackers including the Shell cracker near Pittsburgh and potentially a second ethane cracker proposed by PTT Global Chemical in Belmont County. The salt caverns can also be used to store hydrogen (H2).
Over the years we’ve covered a number of stories about companies buying future royalty payments from landowners (and rights owners) for an upfront, one lump sum payment now. Normally the deals don’t disclose how much money changed hands for those upfront payments. We have some recent transactions from a newcomer to the Marcellus/Utica, a company willing to announce how much they paid to buy those rights, which caught our attention. We have financial details for a deal in the Marcellus, and details for a deal in the Utica to share with you. We have hard numbers for how much they paid to buy those royalty rights.