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Permalink Reply by st. croix on January 31, 2014 at 3:24pm

thanks for the help, it looks like they are going to need about 800' of my property.I was thinking that shorter the right of way the more they need to pay.It started out at 50' width and out of no where they now  need 100' width. Is it possible to get any straight answers out of these people or is it a never ending cat and mouse game ?

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Permalink Reply by Kathi Albertson on January 31, 2014 at 4:02pm

St. Croix

I appreciate your last comment more than you know! We are playing the same kind of game over a pipeline replacement project. The company has no choice as to whether or not they will replace the line or where the pipe goes. We have been trying for months to get them to tell us what they need. After being told by the land man last week that they wanted 75 feet of additional work space along the length of the line, we pointed out that the engineering drawings that they gave us only indicated an additional 45 feet of additional work space. Oops! And that was only the beginning of the lack of accurate detail that sent the land man back to the recorders office for two days. He said that they want to start in early March. Until they can tell us for sure what they want we aren't even going to bring the attorney in on it as it would be a waste of his time. We are really surprised at how this major company operates. We have a great relationship with the locals in charge of the line but these outside land men are something else. You really have to watch them.

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Permalink Reply by INVICTUS on January 31, 2014 at 11:07pm

It is a never ending cat and mouse game, full of deception and actual lies.

I am a very big believer in this whole effort to wean our nation off of foreign energy imports. Also, I'm an unrepentant believer in capitalism as the economic system with which to accomplish these goals.

Unfortunately my repeated experience with a pipeline company (Access Midstream and its own pipeline contractor Cardinal Gas Services (all of which was Chesapeake Midstream until this year when the entire division was spun off in to a separate entity) has left me with a rather foul impression of the pipeline business.

My conclusion is that the behavior exhibited by these people is always deceptive, disingenuous, and sometime actually illegal.

Yes it is THAT bad.

Dealing with these situations without an experienced O/G attorney (or at least one very familiar with right-of-way language) is a very dangerous way to go for the landowner. the decisions one signs to on the "lease" agreement are generally permanent.

Access and Cardinal Gas will pay (if they absolutely have to: $45/foot for 8" gathering lines. (I know of ONE situation where they paid $100/ft for a Gathering line. Typical initial offers in my area seem to have stabilized @ $15/ft.

Watch.  Sooner or late they will ask for a second line, even if you are bargaining for just one line.

And yes, their landmen are sloppy with regard to detail.

More often than not, we have discovered that their marching orders from the bosses who hire the brokers DO NOT WANT any detailed language in their lease that obligates them to any more land protections for the landowner than necessary.

There involves lots of verbal this and verbal that, promises, etc.

Try getting all of those promises in writing!

There will be differences between

1) Gathering lines that drain wellpads from gas/oil on your lease; 

2) Gathering lines that come across you but do not drain your lease; 

3) the larger lines which can be intrastate or interstate lines.

There are a few situations in which you can be forced to take a line.

There are many situations in which you don't have to take a line.

The differences are worth researching and spending your time with.

As one poster on this site said ".....Pipeline ROWs are forever".

You are, in effect, selling that parcel of land forever, although you will be allowed to walk it, pay taxes on it, for the rest of your ownership life.

My experiences are corroborated with local landowners and some very large and well-known landowners, folks you wouldn't think of as normally being pushed about in matters such as these.

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Permalink Reply by lance on February 1, 2014 at 12:24am

Thanks for all the good posts, very informative and enlightening... Is it standard procedure for Mark West to make 'counter offers'. My attorney sent a dollar figure to them for 1000 ft. ROW with 5 pipes. The first being a 20" trunk line. And then 4 smaller pipes. Is 40 and 30 a ft. too much to ask for considering they had to go around a land owner who refused to deal with them and ended up pursuing me...? This land man is very accommodating and willing to work with me on every issue... I'll see what my lawyer says...

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Permalink Reply by st. croix on February 1, 2014 at 12:48am

Lance I wouldn't go any lower than $50 a foot for the 1st. line and at least the same for the 2nd. I'm not negotiating any more than 2 lines. Why should we take less for something in the future while the cost of everything is going up?

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