Information from a huge industry exposition that took place in Houston last week strongly suggests that oil and gas leases representing at least 67,000 acres in Athens and Meigs counties were being shopped around to potential buyers who may want to drill for shale oil or gas here.

The local leases were being hawked at the 2012 NAPE Winter Expo, whose website bellows in a headline, "Billions of Dollars Looking for Deals!"

The leasing parcels were being offered in two roughly equal sizes. One of the local parcels, about 35,000 acres put together by the Southern Athens County Landowner Association, is part of a much bigger parcel of southeast Ohio leases being represented by a McConnelsville company representing a number of landowners groups in Athens and nearby counties.

The other big parcel, "Athens County 32,000 acres," was being advertised in that fashion on a map at a booth operated by Western Land Services, Inc., a Michigan-based company with several offices across the country. The map was photographed by an anonymous source at the NAPE Expo.

However, The Athens NEWS has been unable to ascertain what oil and gas leases these may be, in particular whether they're among acreage that Cunningham Energy of West Virginia has locked up in Athens County.

The most visible player in Athens County so far in terms of leasing for oil drilling in the Utica shale, Cunningham claims to have locked up around 100,000 acres in Athens County for potential drilling.

Up till now, however, there's been no indication that Cunningham is involved with Western Land Services, and Cunningham is not the only entity that has been securing lease deals here. Calls to Cunningham representatives from The Athens NEWS went unanswered last week, which has been the case for a month or more.

Cunningham was not listed as having hosted a booth at the NAPE Winter Expo.

Another outfit representing landowners in Athens County, America's Choice Realty of St. Clairsville, Ohio, did not have a booth listed at the NAPE Winter Expo either, though it's always possible they could have been represented by someone else.

The NAPE Winter Expo (formerly the North American Prospect Expo) "was created in 1993 to provide a marketplace for the buying, selling and trading of oil-and-gas prospects," according to its website.

With the current frenzy to tie up leases in the New York-Pennsylvania-Ohio area to drill for oil and/or natural gas in deep shale beds, the twice-annual NAPE Expo seems to have taken on a new level of excitement.

The expo attracted an extraordinary range of exhibitors from around the planet, ranging from energy giants to investment companies to national governments.

Among the hundreds of exhibitors who set up booths there, according to the website, were industry giants Anadarko Petroleum; Halliburton Operating Co.; Marathon Oil Co.; Chesapeake Energy; and Shell Exploration & Production Co.

National entities included the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines; the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas; the Alberta Department of Energy; the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs; the Republic of Cyprus; the Republic of Lebanon; and Sierra Leone.

Investment firms that showed up included The Carlyle Group; Merrill Lynch; Raymond James & Associates; and U.S. Bank.

A source at the expo had communicated to The Athens NEWS Thursday that one exhibitor, Western Land Services, Inc., was there shopping lease acreage in Athens and nearby counties. A map at the company's booth showed 70,000 acres in southeast Ohio up for sale 32,000 of it in Athens County, and the rest in Guernsey, Belmont, Muskingum and Licking counties.

According to Western Land Services' website, the company helps its clients to "develop large acreage positions in various oil and gas plays throughout the United States," but has also been "an active participant, sharing in the progression of (oil-and-gas) operations as well."

The NEWS was unable to reach Western Land Services on Friday, to try to ascertain whether in its presence at NAPE, the company was simply acting as a land agent for someone else, or trying to put together a drilling operation on its own behalf.

Southern Ohio Energy Consultants, based in McConnelsville, is reportedly representing 11 more southeast Ohio landowners groups with a total of 155,000 acres, including the Southern Athens County Landowner Association (SACLA). Landowner groups typically try to put together large blocks of land in order to get the best price for what they are described as landowner-friendly leases.

Southern Ohio Energy Consultants' website says that SACLA is located "in southern Athens County (Alexander, Lodi, Carthage, Canaan, Troy, and Rome Townships) and northern Meigs County (Bedford, Olive, Orange, and Scipio Townships)," and "is an open and actively growing group." At the time of writing, the site says, the group had put together 34,500 acres and was "growing daily." – Athens NEWS Editor Terry Smith contributed to this story