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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An interesting case recently decided by Ohio’s Fourth District Court of Appeals has a significant impact for both surface landowners and drillers. The case is Zimmerview Dairy Farms, LLC v. Protégé Energy III LLC and establishes, under Ohio law, that a general release of damages contract (typically signed by landowners when they lease land for drilling or pipelines) does not release a driller or pipeline company from its ongoing obligation to remediate (fix) and restore damage to a landowner’s property.
Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH (privately owned), has hired Detring Energy Advisors to market some of the company’s Utica Shale assets. The assets include 22,000 acres in Harrison and Tuscarawas counties, Ohio. According to the company’s website, Pin Oak owns some 317,000 net acres with some 207,000 “net deep acres” with Utica/Point Pleasant and Marcellus potential. Pin Oak owns and operates over 3,300 producing wells–most of them conventional, some shale.
Last week Pennsylvania issued 16 new shale well permits. EQT led the way with ten permits, all of them for wells in Greene County. You just HAVE to read the names of the wells (below). After getting skunked for two weeks in a row, Ohio finally issued permits once again last week–ten of them. Ascent Resources scored six permits, mostly in Belmont County. Encino Energy had four permits, all in Carroll County. Finally, West Virginia had nine permits. Antero Resources scored seven of the nine (six in Wetzel County), and Southwestern took the remaining two permits (both in Marshall County).
JobsOhio, a private nonprofit largely funded by the profits from state liquor sales, is dedicated to attracting new jobs and investments to the state. JobsOhio has been a big part of the plan to get an ethane cracker built in the state, a project currently on hold. JobsOhio still believes there will be an ethane cracker plant built on a site prepared for that purpose in Belmont County, Ohio. PTT Global Chemical is supposed to be the one building the plant. However, a stray comment by the President and CEO of JobsOhio, JP Nauseef, confirms what we’ve thought for a long time…
KeyState LLC is developing 7,000 acres of natural gas fields and geological storage in West Keating Township, Clinton County in the middle of coal and iron country in central Pennsylvania (see 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
Last Friday the Utica Energy Alliance (UEA), which represents hundreds of landowners, businesses, community leaders and allies of the shale industry, sent a letter to the entire Ohio Congressional delegation asking the state’s Senators and Congresspeople to stand behind the U.S. initiative to support the European Union by promoting Ohio’s (and the entire Marcellus/Utica region’s) production of natural gas. The UEA says using American natgas is the only way for Europe to end reliance on Russian energy and put an end to funding Putin’s war machine. The group requested a written response from each member. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a response from U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.