EQT AND ROYALTIES

I got my Royalty check to day from EQT 1.25 PER MMCF IS THAT KINDA LOW OR WHAT. WELL HEAD PRICE. What are you all getting for July's production Think there selling to them selves ??

 

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Permalink Reply by WV Mineral Owner on September 20, 2018 at 4:01pm
Yes, EQT sells to EQT Transportation at a below market price. Many question why I recommend people use an Attorney before signing a lease of modification, but a Third Party Arms Length Transaction clause prevents this from happening.
Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on September 20, 2018 at 4:05pm

Thank you WV Mineral Owner for this very important information.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Kerr on September 21, 2018 at 8:24am

tHANK YOU WV MINERAL OWNER OLD LEASE ORIG. CHK LEASE. Rice was better to work with 

Permalink Reply by DSFS on September 21, 2018 at 12:28am

Yes been getting screwed by EQT for over a year. Rumor of class action suits coming against EQT  and rightly so ..

Permalink Reply by Jeff Kerr on September 21, 2018 at 8:22am

DSFS PLEASE KEEP ME INFORMED ON THIS AND i WILL DO THE SAME 

Permalink Reply by Jeff Kerr on October 2, 2018 at 2:28pm

Up Date EQT did pay 2.44 per unit on the gas. It was a error when printed did the math on it and it worked out sorry for the false claim on my post.Now to get them to pay my delay rental on one Prop. Rice always pd in sept still waiting  So far Rice was better to work with.

Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on October 2, 2018 at 2:42pm

Here is an article from this week's Ritchie Gazette (WV)

Harrisville Couple Awarded $234,540 Against EQT
 
A jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia returned the verdict last week in favor of Arnold K. Richards, age 85, and his wife, Mary L. Richards, also age 85, of Rock Camp Road, Harrisville, against EQT Production Company, the leading natural gas producer in the United States and a subsidiary of energy giant EQT of Pittsburgh, PA.  
 
Arnold, a retired millwright with DuPont , and Mary, a housewife who claims she can’t retire, had sued EQT Production Company in February, 2017, in Ritchie County Circuit Court. for unlawfully deducting West Virginia severance taxes and post-production costs from their natural gas royalty payments.   EQT, as an out-of-state corporation, had removed the case to federal court in Clarksburg, where it was tried last week before Judge Irene N. Keeley.
 
Mr. & Mrs. Richards bought their farm land with three tracts of oil, gas and minerals near Harrisville in 1954.   The land had been leased for oil and gas drilling in 1951, and had been produced continuously under those leases until the present time.  
 
“Our royalty payments from the older vertical wells drilled on the property had been paid —without deductions— for more than 64 years.  The leases were acquired by EQT a few years ago, and they wanted to renegotiate the terms,” Arnold Richards said.
 
Company agents approached the mineral owners with a modification agreement in 2014 to pool the acreage into a larger unit for Marcellus Shale development.
 
“We agreed to the pooling modification, but Arnold strictly refused to let EQT change our existing 1/8 royalty under those old leases,” Mary Richards emphasized. “I didn’t used to know much about oil and gas leases, but I’m learning.”
 
In the summer and fall of 2016, EQT drilled six Marcellus Shales wells on a well pad located on an adjacent farm.  The horizontal lateral "legs" of those wells extended beneath the Richards property.  “When we received the first royalty checks from the new horizontal wells in January, 2017, and I was shocked to see how much EQT had taken from us in deductions,” Arnold Richards stated.
 
In addition to a sizeable increase in their royalty payments from the Marcellus Shale wells, the Richardses discovered something very troubling.  In violation of the terms of the 1951 leases, EQT had taken large deductions from their gas royalty payments.  
 
Those royalty deductions had been taken to offset the costs of the natural resources severance taxes which the State of West Virginia charged EQT as a producer of oil and gas on both the old vertical wells and the new horizontal shale wells.  The corporation had also taken deductions to offset post-production costs on the horizontal shale wells for gathering and moving the natural gas to the interstate pipeline. 
 
According to EQT, those costs were incurred among the several EQT subsidiary companies, and then “charged back” to the individual mineral owners in the form of a reduced price for the natural gas.  
 
Testimony and documents presented at trial from EQT showed it took deductions for expenses from the time the “wet” shale gas left the wellhead near the community of Pullman until it entered the interstate pipeline. Those deductions included transportation to the MarkWest plant located thirty miles away in Doddridge County where the natural gas liquids were separated from the methane.
 
According to the trial testimony, after Arnold Richards discovered the unauthorized deductions, he immediately called EQT and demanded a refund pursuant to the lease terms. "I didn't get any satisfaction from EQT.  They just gave me the runaround.  That's when I went to see my lawyers, Scott Windom and Rod Windom at Windom Law Offices," he stated.  "We filed suit just a month later, in February 2017."
 
In the meanwhile, EQT continued taking the unauthorized deductions from the Richardses' royalty payments. By the time of trial, the EQT had withheld $42,541 in severance taxes, and $191,999 in improper post-production costs from Arnold and Mary Richards.
 
EQT’s best settlement offer before trial was $15,000.   “That’s just not fair,” Arnold Richards said. “We pay our taxes. A good many it seems. We don’t want to pay EQT’s.”
 
At the conclusion of the evidence, Judge Keeley entered a verdict awarding the Richardses a refund from EQT for the $42,541 in severance taxes as a matter of law.
 
The jury then deliberated and returned its verdict awarding them a refund of the remaining $191,999 in post-production costs which had been improperly withheld by EQT.
 
“We are absolutely pleased with the outcome of the case.  This is not for us, we did it for our children and our grandchildren,” Arnold Richards said.
 
“I just wanted to be treated fair. We tried settling with EQT out of court, but they wouldn’t work with us. Mary and I are both 85 years old. Except for serving on grand jury duty, this is the first time we have ever been to court,” he emphasized. “But if we couldn’t have gone to court to get satisfaction, we would have just lost out.”
Permalink Reply by Lynn mudder on October 2, 2018 at 4:20pm

Good for the Richards and kudos to the judge! It’s about time landowners get what is due them.  

Permalink Reply by Jeff Kerr on October 3, 2018 at 8:23am

EQT is not above the law About time the land and or the mineral owners are treated fair.  if they can't make ends meet while getting 88 % of the gas money they should get a different CEO AND OR JUST QUIT THE GAS BUSINESS.  GREAT NEWS   

Permalink Reply by william george allison on October 3, 2018 at 8:33am

you hit the nail on the head jeff.it blows my mind on how much money they make on a well and then try to take more from the royalty owner from selling the gas to themselves and all the bogus deductions .

Permalink Reply by WV Mineral Owner on October 3, 2018 at 9:04am

There are reliable rumors that a class action lawsuit is in the works against EQT, pertaining to illegal deductions taken from mineral owners.  It will prove interesting to see if a victory will change the 'Holier Than Thou' attitude that EQT operates under.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Kerr on October 4, 2018 at 10:21am

William The gas CO. are greedy and need to pay the investors what ever happened to making your money back in the long run NOT OVERNIGHT    The ugly side of capitalism  

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