Just curious...

     I am in Liberty township and a few months ago got an offer to buy my royalties for 1500 to 1800 per acre, but they would do a more in-depth look if I was serious which "mite change the numbers" slightly....even tho I am not drilled or receiving any royalties ..talked to a landsman rite b4 I contacted them and he advised caution as there will be "significant" activity in my area in the "near future"....how about it, anybody else get an offer or hear anything or see any activity here in Tioga Co. ?

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Which mountain ... Bloss, Steam Valley, other?

The first (non-itallic) paragraph of the  above comment appears to be adapted from marcellusdrilling.com ... not from David Hess's blog.

"PA Gov Wolf “Eager” to Sign Drilling Law Forced Down His Throat"
June 16, 2016
"We can’t stop laughing. PA’s very liberal Governor, Tom Wolf, has been obstinate in demanding onerous new drilling rules for the conventional, as well as unconventional (shale) drilling industry since he took office. Reworked drilling rules were done and ready to go under previous Governor, Tom Corbett. Then Corbett lost to Wolf, and Wolf demanded to change common sense rules everyone had already agreed to (see New Draft Drilling Regulations in PA: Wastewater Impoundments Out). ..."
https://marcellusdrilling.com/2016/06/pa-gov-wolf-eager-to-sign-dri...

David Hess's blog article:
"Senate, House Re-Write Of Oil & Gas Act For Conventional Drillers Turns Back The Clock To 1984"
March 21, 2018
"Sen. Scott Hutchinson (R-Venango) and Rep. Martin Causer (R-Forest) Monday introduced House Bill 2154 (Causer-R-Forest) and Senate Bill 1088 ..."
http://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2018/03/senate-house-re-writ...

E5929-076: HEP Tioga Gathering, LLC, Liberty Township, Tioga County
"...16 inch diameter waterline ... and 16 inch diameter natural gas pipeline ..."
https://www.pabulletin.com/secure/data/vol48/48-12/455a.html

TIOGA WATER LINE EXPANSION
http://www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/eFACTSWeb/searchResults_singleSite.aspx?S...

I would STRONGLY suggest that anyone who has land that may be involved in these wells and is leased under an old East Resources lease do the following.  Look at the addendum section of your lease, specifically #9.  If it speaks about writing a letter to SWEPI demanding the surrender of any acres or layers deeper than the deepest depth drilled, and none of your land has been unitized deeper than the Marcellus, you should take five minutes and write such a letter.  You should send it to SWEPI via certified and/or registered mail so that you receive notice back that they received it.  You should do that NOW.  This could be worth quit a lot of money to you.

I did this a year or so ago and SWEPI immediately responded with an offer to lease the lower layers.

I signed a boilerplate lease with East Resources in mid February of 2006.  I think many people did the same thing.  Bonus was $60 an acre.  Royalty was 12.5% with no deductions.  In 2007 or 2008, other companies moved into the area and offered much better money for the Marcellus, which had barely been mentioned in the lease negotiations in 2006.  East offered a top lease deal, which I did not accept.  The lease that I had said that if a land owner wished to have his/her land surrendered from East at the end of the first five years, that land owner need only submit a letter requesting demanding such action be taken.  In hopes of being released from my lease with East and negotiating a better lease with another company, I wrote such a letter.  East drilled vertical, non-producing wells down to the Marcellus before the five year anniversary of my lease came about, effectively locking up any acreage involved in the units created and down to the bottom of the Marcellus.  East soon sold out to Shell.  I kind of forgot about my letter because it had not been effective for the Marcellus and the Marcellus proved to be not very profitable in my area.  So Shell discovers the valuable Utica in my locality.  I am reminded of my letter to East.  I bring it up to Shell's attention.  They have to surrender rights to my acreage beneath the Marcellus.  Ultimately, SWEPI and I negotiate a deal for $3,500 an acre for 24 acres at 14% royalty with no deductions.  The no deductions part was accomplished by using a "reviver" which basically resurrects the surrendered old lease with new addendums to allow for the increased bonus and royalty.  The bonus payment amounted to a little shy of $84,000.  If this kind of financial gain interests any of you out there with an old East lease, write the letter.  If SWEPI does not get you drilled and unitized before the 5, 10, or 15 year anniversary of you lease, they must surrender your Utica formations.  If SWEPI was not in a hurry to drill your land, now they will have to re think their time frame and speed things up.  If there is oil beneath the Utica, you will be able to negotiate a new lease at a later date for that.

I have simplified my story to make it shorter, but in no way have I left any details out that will prevent this chain of actions on your part and responses from SWEPI from happening.  This story is concrete.  All of this information is recorded as public knowledge. 

In NE TC, in 2005/2006, what East and Fortuna (Talisman) were leasing for was Trenton/BR wells. (Which they were then drilling in NY.) There was a short period in 2007/early 2008 when the bonus went up to $200.

I may be incorrect, but I think that additional bonus was part of a top lease offer from East when other companies showed up offering $2,000 and $3,000 an acre.  the interest had shifted to the Marcellus because of the success in that formation to the east.  After the great crash of 2008, East revised their offer to $150 an acre to be increased to $1,500 an acre upon the 5 year anniversary of the lease, if no wells had been drilled into the Marcellus by then.  The royalty was also to increase to 15% or !%.5% on that anniversary also.  For most people who took this top lease deal, East found the resources to drill non-producing, vertical, Marcellus wells on or near their property before the anniversary deadline, thus negating the top lease.  I believe that Shell provided the resources to drill those wells, but I have no proof and the point is mute.

These landowners were stuck with the original lease at $60 an acre for renewal at 12.5%.  This is why I encourage these people to write a letter demanding surrender now.  If they did not receive the $1,500 per acre and 15% royalties, their top lease never happened.  their Utica layers are vulnerable for surrender from SWEPI upon their next 5 year anniversary.

If in the future layers, such as the Blackriver/Trenton again become of interest, any landowner who has taken the 5 to 15 minutes to write and send this letter now, will have the perfect right to lease these formations to the highest bidder.

I encourage someone who went through this process to correct me where I am wrong.  I did not take the East top lease offer, so I may very well be incorrect.

If these letters are received by SWEPI, SWEPI must either speed up the drilling schedule to hold the Utica formation in some areas under lease or loose the leases.  SWEPI can offer another top lease now.  SWEPI could end up competing for Utica layers, which they once held.

It was KKR that "made out like a bandit", providing the $$ for those (75?) wells, in exchange for a piece oft East. Afaik, most of the ones drilled in Jackson/Rutland were horizontal, 1 per unit. The non-surface lease I was "offered" never did materialize, so I never leased.

My 200 hundred NY Shale acres await ........... 

"Expected lawsuits don't follow NY fracking ban"
Democrat & Chronicle - April 20, 2017

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his top commissioners braced for lawsuits when they announced plans to ban large-scale hydraulic fracturing in late 2014.

They weren't alone: Advocates on both sides of the years-long debate over natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale had assumed it would be the courts — not the governor — that ultimately decided fracking's fate in the Empire State.

So far, they've been wrong. ..."
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/201...

"Fracking: Landowner sues New York, seeks compensation for ban"
Democrat & Chronicle - Dec. 21, 2017

"An East Rochester lawyer waging a years-long battle over New York's hydraulic fracturing ban is taking a new approach, filing a lawsuit last week attempting to force the state to compensate him for the oil-and-gas rights on his land. ..."
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/201...

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