Just received an interesting phone call from a landman that's working for Kenyon/Chesapeake.  We have 92 acres - 78 is leased and the remainder was on an old lease that expired in February and is now "unleased".  We have taken a "let's wait and see" approach with this 14 acre parcel and have been contacted by a couple of different landmen about leasing over the last few months. 

The most recent offer was a couple of weeks ago at $5800/acre with a gross 20% royalty and acceptance of the SURE or ALOV lease by Kenyon/Chesapeake.  Our caller today told us that Chesapeake has told them (the landmen) that they can no longer make that offer.  They can only ask for $5000/acre with a NET royalty and may only use the original "base" Chesapeake lease, and there's no guarantee they can get that. 

The landman also indicated that we should read up on "forced pooling", because now that Chesapeake has over 95% of the land in Carroll County under lease, they will begin forcing the unleased owners to be pooled into their units at their terms and 1/8 royalty.  He indicated that the "competition" has left town and Chesapeake no longer has any incentive to increase the prospective lease terms. 

Is anyone else hearing this same info?  Personally, I think its a scare tactic to get people to sign...especially since we heard very similar comments from a landman "long ago" when they were trying to get us to sign our 78 acre parcel for $600 an acre (which we didn't do, by the way).  Just thought I'd pass the info along though and see if anyone else cares to comment.