OH Town Votes to Give Up 1/4 Royalties for Cash Payment Now
Should a municipality that’s leased village-owned land to a shale driller (in this case in Ohio’s Utica Shale) sell some of their future potential royalties for cash now in order to buy a firetruck? It’s not a hypothetical question. Carrollton, OH council members voted this week to do just that. Selling future earnings is nothing new: It happens with lottery winners. They win a lottery with a payout over the next 20-30 years but want (or need) the money now. So they sell their future payments to a third party for a discounted amount of cash now.
It’s one thing for an individual to do it, but quite another (in our opinion) for a municipality to do it…
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Time for Shell to get serious about whether or not they plan to build a $2 billion ethane cracker plant in Monaca, PA. Shell announced yesterday they will have something akin to a pipeline open season, a period of time when drillers can bid on capacity to send the plant (should it be built) their locally-produced ethane supplies. The bidding period will run from August 27 through October 4 and will give Shell a good idea of just how much ethane will be available for them to “crack” at the plant.
Investor’s website Market Realist ran a 7-part series on the Utica Shale yesterday–really good stuff. As part of that series they list the biggest drillers/leaseholders in the Ohio Utica Shale. It’s a very useful rundown and update on the latest positions held by the major players of the Utica. We’ve pulled and condensed from their article to give you the latest rundown on who’s who in the Ohio Utica Shale…