A legal ad in the Susquehanna Transcript today indicates there is a landman who will be holding a meeting in Susquehanna tomorrow to give information and try to get blocks of people to sign a gas lease. I find it very interesting that they want to get even the smallest parcels signed up. It indicates trying to create blocks of property owners in the Borough. The ad is directed toward residents and business owners. There are a significant number of owners who are NOT residents. I wonder if they are specifically excluded or just poor wording in the legal.
It is fascinating that they are trying to get town parcels. Maybe they (and possibly correctly) assume that because fuel oil is around $4.50 currently and climbing, that many will sign just to be able to pay their heating bill this winter.
As Thompson noted previously, with 145 years of experience, they know more than we do. Do not sign a lease without knowing exactly what you are signing. If you think you do, you need to re-read it again, then get a qualified attorney to review and make changes in your favor.
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The attached comments to this post (below) contain some very interesting material. Take the time to review them especially if you have any interest in considering a lease.
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Your thoughts?
This is a little off the writer’s subject, but it is an interesting observation from a Triple Cities events calendar:
from “Jim” -
“I attended the meeting last night in Vestal on gas drilling. My impression is that the potential to cause environmental destruction is much more serious than the TCE issue here. Some facts from the meeting that seem to stick out:
+ The Federal regulations were dumbed down and somewhat deregulated under the Bush administration regulation in 2005. Since this seems to supersede any State or local power it seems there needs to be an activist effort to reverse
these on a federal level. (Hopefully under the Democratic administration)+ Roads will be destroyed so municipalities need to acquire bonds (For other environmental destruction too)+ There’s over 200 chemicals identified that goes into these wells and we
won’t find out what’s used because it’s proprietary information (Needs legislation to change that and mandate that only safe alternative substances are used.+ Good idea brought up at meeting: mandate that gas companies process toxic
material brought back up from well. (Concern is that the gas company is sub contracting the drilling company to do the work and they bid on the job making minimal amount of revenue for the job therefore there’s motivation to cut
corners to save money on the job (Example: dump material where they should not: Some companies are just laying down a big plastic sheet and dumping all the toxic chemicals/water they call braim brought back up from the well, folding the
edges of the plastic over the top and bulldozing dirt over the top and no one ever knows. Doesn’t matter if someone finds out because there’s no federal regulations that mandate the material get processed anyhow. best option would be to
process the material in a plant built locally. (Some drillers dump it back down a dry well and others it’s thought could even be dumping it in coal mines in PA) If it’s transferred up north to toxic waste dumps there will be tons of
extra traffic and organizers of the meeting doubt the extra expense will be spent. Best option seems to be to build a processing plant. Since there is no law to mandate gas drilling companies have to build them, Looks like tax payers
are going to have to take the lead and pay for them to help protect our environment. Perhaps there can be some Federal or State aid to cover most of the cost. I’m not sure if the drillers can even be forced to use them because the
Federal regulations are so lax. + There’s no laws to even see how much the gas companies are really producing in terms of gas flow. The meters are locked up under key so the property owners don’t know if they are being cheated. No government agency audits the
amount produced. The meters are not checked by any government agencies to see if they are accurate No system is in place regarding accuracy for taxation. Basically the Feds have given a blank check for any control or regulation of this gas
drilling. There’s a bypass on each well with bypass valve. The bypass valve could even be partially open and no-one would even know. Land owner could be cheated easily. Drillers have been know to drill sideways where they don’t have
to and no one ever knows because when they are done with the drilling they place dynamite in the well to collapse the evidence of the well. + The Broome and Tioga County area is one of the most heavily concentrated
gas deposits in much of the Marcellus shall. We are sitting on the equivalent of Houston Texas. There’s no stopping the drilling so we just have to work to regulation the public safety aspect. (Educate the public too)
+ If you have a million gallons of water pumped into a well, The amount of chemicals added is enormous. The well is lined with concrete but sometimes the well passes through large areas of water that are difficult or impossible to
seal. Also what about concrete degrading after several years? Once well in PA had to be closed down they hit so much water. One well had to be closed because it hit so much gas pressure it caused the earth to spit up several sections of
pipe into the air.In conclusion: I think this area is going to be wreaked environmentally and there’s no stopping it unless we can make changes on a federal level. We need laws to make them stop putting any thing toxic in the wells period and some way
to audit the process. Problem even with that is the DEC don’t have the resources to oversee anything. The DEC doesn’t even have the manpower to oversee the cleanup process of all the toxic waste dumps and spills that are already
known. Forget about the ones not discovered yet.+ The final kicker is that the gas companies are using the gas leases to speculate in the market. They are turning around and reselling the leases for higher amounts even to foreign companies like China. so not only are we selling
home made oil in places like Alaska to Japan. Now natural gas in America is going to be sold over seas and we never will be energy independent We should be using oil in manufacturing synthetic products any how instead of burning it for
energy.= The other thing that stuck out is that the person who signs the lease in some cases can be held responsible for any environmental effects+ It just amazes me that this country can be so stupid in regard to pollution
and energy production. Investment should be for solar and other alternatives. I have a learning disability called attention deficit disorder and can see what’s going on and why it’s wrong. Must come down to plain greed and lack of
common sense. Some people just don’t care. That’s the worst disease of intelligence Caring must be a form of intelligense but I”ve never seen it on an IQ test. Odd.The presenter at the meeting says the Southern Tier has been slow in the
media to cover the full environmental consequences in the news coverage for some reason.”
Another “read the lease before you sign” story:
http://www.thedailycitizen.com/articles/2008/07/20/news/local_news/news01.txt
New York can raise the assessment value on land that contains a gas well. That generates more tax for the local government and schools. Does Pennsylvania allow this?
http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/08-07-17/head1-tax.html
A nice overview story in the Wilkes-Barre paper:
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Gas_wells_a_mixed_blessing_on_property_07-13-2008.html
Barnett Shale Louisiana lease: $30,212 per acre plus 30 percent royalty:
http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/770454.html
A report on Range Resources in the Marcellus Shale. Interesting numbers:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080714005344&newsLang=en
Here are the prices for natural gas:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm
And here are all the units of measure:
http://www.aga.org/Kc/aboutnaturalgas/additional/HowtoMeasureNaturalGas.htm
Using the last three articles we learn that the initial output of a well is about 4.1 Mmcfe per day or 4,100 mcfe per day and the wellhead price in April 2008 was $8.94 per mcfe. The daily output of such a well is 4.1 * 8.94 = $36,659 per day. That makes a one eighth equal to $4,582 per day or $1,672,339 per year. Of course the gas company gets seven eighths or $32,077 per day or $11,707,968 per year. Remember that this “initial level” falls dramatically during the first year, but continues at about the 20% level for 30 to 40 years.
From an article “Indigestion - Natural Gas Causes as many Problems as it Solves” by Ben Cramer in the Sierra Club publication “The Sylvanian” for August-October 2008.
“The Marcellus shale contains measurable, but relatively insignificant amounts of natural gas that must be extracted via a technique called “fracturing,”…
“These cracks can extend thousands of feet away from the vertical well and the energy company holdings above, and can caus sub-surface geologic damage to adjoining private properties and public lands….
“During fracturing, this water becomes contaminated by the very same gas it is helping to extract. The wastewater is usually pumped back out of the fracturing site, but must be disposed of nearby, causing pollution to local drinking water sources. The use of this pressurized water underground also alters groundwater patterns and releases natural gas and other chemicals (formerly locked in the impermeable shale) into the surrounding ecosystem…
“Sierra Club supports natural gas that is extracted in an environmentally acceptable fashion, but in Pennsylvania, the extraction and delivery of natural gas produces a number of environmentally unacceptable side effects.”
Here is an excellent 25 page article about gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and New York. (loaded with references and Internet links) The Earthworks page describes the effort with a “Download Report” at the bottom:
http://www.earthworksaction.org/marcellusshale08.cfm
or get the report directly - “Shale Gas: Focus on the Marcellus Shale” (May 2008):
http://www.earthworksaction.org/pubs/OGAPMarcellusShaleReport-6-12-08.pdf
Did you know that there are three different techniques of fracking? “straight nitrogen gas, nitrogen foam, and slickwater”
AND, what is “slickwater”? Read the report.