WV Gov. Justice Does 180 – Says He’ll Sign Co-Tenancy Bill
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has done a complete 180 degree turn around with respect to signing a co-tenancy bill. As we previously reported, the co-tenancy bill was passed first by the House, and then the Senate (see WV Co-Tenancy Bill Passes in Senate – Now Waits for Gov to Sign). However, on the way to final passage, Justice wanted to link co-tenancy with joint development, which would allow drillers who own existing (old) leases on adjoining properties to pool them into a unit without signing new shale leases with the owners. He threatened to veto a co-tenancy bill if there is no joint development bill too (see WV Gov. Justice Kills Co-Tenancy Bill by Linking it to Joint Dev). Justice got a lot of blowback, from everyone, and soon after his shoot-from-lip comments, he backed off his threat to veto. Yesterday Justice said he will sign the co-tenancy bill, that there are a lot of “positive benefits” to the legislation. What a turnaround!…
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Sometimes radicals who have “jumped the shark” and descended into complete lunacy go up a tree–literally. We’ve spotted this mental condition before (see 
On Saturday, the full West Virginia Senate voted on House Bill (HB) 4268–the “co-tenancy” bill–passing the measure by a vote of 23-11. This is tremendously good news–for both landowners and drillers. Although WV Gov. Jim Justice had previously threatened to veto the bill because he wanted it tied (like a millstone) to the neck of another bill (joint development), Justice backed off that position after getting a lot of blowback, from virtually everyone (see 
The Japanese recently found out more about the Marcellus/Utica and the region in the Mid-Ohio Valley called the “Shale Crescent.” In June 2016, MDN told you about an economic development group of business and government leaders from Ohio and West Virginia (the Mid-Ohio Valley) called Shale Crescent (see 
Well looky at this. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has pulled his head out of his…political fugue…and has reversed course on his opposition to the existing co-tenancy bill that’s near final passage. Justice previously threatened to veto the bill if it should hit his desk…
It seems that all new Marcellus/Utica pipelines run through West Virginia, at one point or another. That means there are (and will be) a lot of jobs available for those trained to work on them. The question is, how do you get trained? According to a recent article, there’s two potential pathways to training, and getting a job, in the midstream industry, in WV. One way is to get an associates (two-year) degree in petroleum or welding technology–like the degrees offered by West Virginia Northern Community College (WVNCC). The other way is to get training from a labor union, like the International Union of Operating Engineers…
Earlier this week MDN told you that West Virginia royalty owners are pushing Senate Bill (SB) 360 to fix the issue of post-production deductions drillers take from royalty checks (see 
West Virginia royalty owners (which sometimes means landowners, sometimes not) are pushing Senate Bill (SB) 360 to fix the issue of post-production deductions drillers take from royalty checks. A brief history: In December 2016, MDN reported on the huge WV Supreme Court decision against EQT that disallows EQT from deducting post-production expenses from royalty checks, even with signed contracts in place (see 
MDN has written a number of posts about an effort in West Virginia to correct an ongoing issue called co-tenancy (
Two days ago we reported that the West Virginia House of Delegates was due to vote on House Bill (HB) 4268, the “Co-tenancy Modernization and Majority Protection Act” (see 
In January, MDN reported that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)–a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA–had received permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin tree clearing and construction of access roads and construction yards in five West Virginia counties: Wetzel, Harrison, Doddridge, Lewis and Braxton counties (see 
Today a co-tenancy bill is due for a vote by the full House of Delegates and from there will get sent on to the WV Senate. Co-tenancy is NOT forced pooling. It is legislation that will give a majority of rights owners in a property the authority to sign a lease on behalf of all the rights owners. In WV there are often multiple rights owners listed for a property–sometimes 200 or more rights owners for a single piece of property! It is often difficult, if not impossible, to track them all down and get them all to sign on the dotted line. Co-tenancy corrects that situation. In the current bill, House Bill (HB) 4268, if 75% of the rights owners agree to lease the property for oil and gas drilling, that’s “good enough.” The bill will open up more Marcellus and Utica acreage to be drilled. As we previously reported, almost everyone is in favor it, including landowner groups (see 
Tree clearing for Dominion’s $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) has already begun in West Virginia (see 
On Wednesday MDN brought you the news that Ascent Resources Marcellus, a company founded by Aubrey McClendon after he left Chesapeake Energy, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see