The Tax Man Returneth — for PA Landowners with Royalties
Landowners who get royalty checks in Pennsylvania beware: the PA tax man may be coming for you. It’s a shame, but landowners who get royalty checks have to employ a bevy of accountants and tax experts in order to file a tax return. Such is life. One of the deductions landowners take from their royalty checks are for production costs. On paper, a landowner may be paid 14% in royalties, but in actuality it works out to be much less. Landowners have to navigate sometimes confusing statements from drillers to put the right numbers in the right boxes. What’s happening now is that the PA Dept. of Revenue is telling some landowners the numbers in the boxes don’t add up–according to their convoluted calculations anyway. And PA wants some of that money back they say should have been paid to them all along. It’s a confusing mess…
Read More “The Tax Man Returneth — for PA Landowners with Royalties”
It’s interesting to MDN that several of the seven Pennsylvania towns that sued the state over the Act 13 law and its zoning provisions–presumably because they didn’t want any Marcellus drilling in their borders–have done a 180 degree turnabout. It happened first in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA–the very township whose name is forever (shamefully) emblazoned on the case, which is called “Robinson v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Voters in Robinson tossed their anti-drilling leaders out of office (see 
Yesterday Range Resources released an announcement with two big pieces of news. The first (and lesser) news is this: Range is trimming its 2015 exploration and production budget by 18% compared to what they spent this year. The 2015 capital expenditure budget is now set at $1.3 billion. However, the company says production will continue to increase, even with less spending on drilling. The second and more important news: Range has drilled a Utica Shale well that has dethroned Magnum Hunter’s Utica well (see 
Flaring a well–which involves burning the initial volume of natural gas (typically waste gas) or because a pipeline is not yet available to hook up to the well–is increasingly a rare event. Most companies attempt to capture even the initial amounts of gas. However, Range Resources is set to begin flaring their very first Utica Shale well, drilled about 10 miles from Washington, PA on the property of the Claysville Sportsmen’s Club in Donegal Township, east of Dutch Fork Lake. The flaring will begin on Dec. 7 and according to Range it will be really big, and really noisy…