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Permalink Reply by NYPAShale on February 25, 2014 at 6:41am

Can't speak specifically about Zach Sullivan, but can give a general view of how H&H might handle things since we just finished a "negotiation" with them (different landman, though). If you are located in a county that Range Resources (H&H negotiates on behalf of RR) pretty much dominates, don't expect him to budge very much. We were able to move the bonus and royalty up a bit, but they wouldn't give us much else (like gross, no expenses, etc.). Also, there was a deadline we had to meet and only had a short time to come to a decision, but I'm not sure if that deadline was real or made up by the landman to get us to sign (I wasn't the one doing the negotiating, sadly). Also, not sure how much acreage you have, but we had just a 10-acre lot, so again, not a lot of leverage there, necessarily. If you have a larger parcel, then you might have more wiggle room to negotiate.

Bottom line, it wasn't much of a negotiation for reasons stated above. Don't be desperate to sign a deal, and don't be afraid to walk away if you don't like what is being offered. They might tell you that there aren't any other options if you don't sign with them, but you should do your homework to find out what companies are working in your county to see if there are other options available. And it probably would be wise to find a good O&G lawyer IN YOUR AREA. We had an O&G lawyer who knows a couple of counties near him very well (we have another property elsewhere), however he did not have much knowledge of the county in which the property mentioned above was located.

That's my two cents.

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