I'm new to "gomarcellusshale", as well as new to this business.  We have a 152 acre farm with "Clinton" gas wells which supply our needs.

We've been approached by Fossil Creek Energy Corp (FCEC) for $50/acre, 12.5% Royalty, and $10,000 if a well is drilled.  We are sitting on the Utica Strata.  I've carefully read the lease and am very suspicious of the terms.  We are consulting attorneys.  I don't see any members from Noble County..and some interesting notes from Guernsey which lead me to suspect the FCEC lease.  Can they broker a lease after signing "cheap"?

We have news of ARTEX Oil offering leases in our County, they're out of Marietta.  Any comment on FCEC, ARTEX, and my suspicions would be welcomed!

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I put a shortcut to that site on my browser. Good info worth considering. I'm absolutely not against tapping our natural resources, but we need to be smart about reducing the environmental impact as much as possible.

Just a note to everyone. Just talked to my geologist friend. She says the utica is not less favorable in the southern townships. She said it goes East to West, all the way to Columbus. She does not know why this other information keeps being told as gospel. Southern townships, hang onto your mineral rights and don't despair.

 

Is it possible someone wants your mineral rights and thinks they can pull the wool over your eyes? If we think what we have is worthless, we might sell it for more than we think it's worth--but a lot less than it is worth. Think about it.

Your geologist friend is somewhat accurate, eastern Noble looks better than Western Noble.  But the thickness of the Point Pleasant formation, the real target, decreases as you move south across the county.  The porosity decreases as you move from west to east.  So if you're in southeast Noble county, you're probably ok, just not as thick as the northeastern part of the county.  If your in southwest Noble county, you've probably got the worst of both (thickness and porosity)

Rick, it seems you know a thing or two about the geology. What about Northern Stark county where Stark,Summit, & Portage all meet? 

That area looks good geologically but it is likely in the "oil window" of the Utica. Which may be a good thing or may be a bad thing.  Generally oil doesn't flow easily through a shale unless it has sufficient permiability. The shales that have worked in the oil window have had higher carbonate content, which luckily the Utica does in the lowest portion.  There has not been any publicized drilling in the oil window to know if it will work or not.  Sorry to not have a more concrete answer, but there should be a few test wells soon that will help give a clearer picture.
Rick.. by "lowest portion" do you mean elevation ?

Here's the presentation with maps. After looking at it, I emailed my friend this question:

"To my geologically uneducated eye, it looks like there's no utica or marcellus in Noble County! You'll have to help me understand this. On the maps it shows a color chart. Noble seems to be consistently in the zero color!"

Here's her answer, giving page numbers from the presentation linked above:

OK - I'll point it out....on page 14, the Marcellus is present at a thickness of about 25 feet.  On pages 28, 35 and 36 the Utica in southern Noble County is 50' thick (this area lies within the 150 and 200 foot contours.  The extent of the Marcellus in Ohio is defined on page 14 by the bold red line.  The Marcellus is much thinner than the Utica, but thick enough for producing wells to exist (look at page 16).  I hope this helps.



 

Christiane,

I believe that the utica/pt pleasant would be between 150 - 200 foot thick in Noble and that should be thick enough to be commericial.  The marcellus is probably too thin to be commercial, however I am not sure if there might eventually be some other upper devonian shale that might produce.  Ultimately no one will know if or how commericial until they drill it.

Anyone go to Cunningham's leasing events? What kinds of offers did you get?
I talked to someone who went to the Guernsey meeting and they offered $5000 /ac with 15% Net on the Deep Gas and 12.5% Net on the oil and shallow gas. They are just looking for large tracts to put together drilling units. The lease is by far the worst I've seen.. no addendum and just everything you don't want in there.
Yes, we got a similar offer and were pretty horrified by the terms. Has anyone re-negotiated the lease with them? Do you know if they're open to that? Could be better to have a private discussion about this so the companies don't see what we're talking about. So if anyone wants to get in on the discussion, friend request me and let me know you want to be in the cunningham offer loop!

Received an email for meeting with Homeland Energy Venture & Carrizo Oil of Texas. They are only taking Guernsey County and are giving the 6 northernmost twps $5100/ac and the rest of the twps $4800/ac plus 20% gross royalty. They begin signing sessions today at Hampton Inn (10/13/11). It doesn't apply to me because I am across the county line in Noble. Carrizo was cited on another blog earlier in the play as payng $1500/ac & 15% & flipping it to another company retaining 10% of income for themselves. I think they may drill some wells but what they are really into is flipping leases to other drillers or even other land dealers. I was disappointed. Given that the value of dry gas in Marcellus shale is valued at  $4/mcf, the majority of leases in PA were paid $4000 plus 20%. Why isn't oil ($18-$24 depending on current market) shale leasing at an equivalently higher amount? This is about a 1/5 ratio in market value. I think we may be jumping too fast at what's being offered even though it's more than our neighbors got when approached early in the year. My husband went to the meeting at Cassel Station and was advised that we are all rushing too soon-that prices will rise. He believes the optimal time will be around the first of the year. What do you think?

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