Historic failure tries it again – John Wells and SOEC are pushing leases with another paper company. Help research Vortex Energy LLC

According to Landowners in Washington County, this past Saturday John Wells and Southern Ohio Energy Consultants (SOEC) had intended to have a meeting for a “select” group of landowners in Beverly, Ohio. People at the door required landowners to show their invitation and their ID to get in. A large crowd of other landowners who were part of the DUX deal but were not in the “select” group of landowners were turned away until they found another way in. Needless to say it was a tense start to the meeting.

Three representatives of Vortex Energy LLC were introduced. They acknowledged that Vortex was a new company incorporated in Delaware. The lease is for $4,000 / acre and 18%. The business address is 222 Pennbright, Suite 155, Houston, Texas 77090.

The lease signing is scheduled for this Friday – Sunday, July 25 – 27. This is just before landowners commitments to SOEC expire at the end of July. Landowners in Washington County need your help and quickly. Please help research Vortex Energy LLC and post what you find.

Here is a start. According to the Delaware Secretary of State, Vortex Energy LLC was formed one month ago on 6/21/13 and has a Registered Agent – Harvard Business Services.

Further research reveals that Harvard Business Services is a company that provides an inexpensive, online way of creating a Delaware LLC or corporation in very little time. Their website is: https://www.delawareinc.com/?crtag=google&gclid=CIPM5d_ZxrgCFdF...

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Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on July 24, 2013 at 1:59pm

Perhaps you are in on Attorney Wells and SEOC's latest venture involving the new company known as Vortex. I post under my own name and have identified myself as a Pennsylvania landowner who wants to help others from making potentially very costly mistakes when they lease their land. I do not know who you are or anything about you. Your angry tone makes me wonder if my comments have struck a nerve. If my comments have no value, readers are free to make that judgment. There are may readers who researched DUX  and were unable to find anything positive about the company. Many questions were asked of John Wells and of SEOC to provide anything positive about DUX! Nobody responded with any positive information whatsoever! The new Wells, SEOC, Vortex scheme appears to be a virtual carbon copy of the Wells, SEOC, DUX  fiasco. Perhaps if readers knew who you really were, they might be able to better evaluate  whether your comments have merit. I believe John Wells if asked under oath to defend the propriety of either the DUX scheme or the VORTEX  scheme might have great difficulty providing credible answers. Perhaps you can provide some answers that might convince persons of even minimal intelligence that they should have anything to do with SEOC, Attorney John Wells, or Vortex. The readers of this thread are all waiting with baited breath to hear your answers!

Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on July 27, 2013 at 7:22am

I made a mistake. The correct acronym is SOEC which stands for Southern Ohio Energy Consultants.

0i7okn54zwbdoPermalink Reply by 0i7okn54zwbdo on July 25, 2013 at 7:55am

"What the ^^&**& is your beef? "

Sam doesn't like scoundrels.  Do you have a problem with that?

Permalink Reply by John OBrien, landowner advocate on July 26, 2013 at 12:46am

WLW,  I don't know who you are but you seem to be a little bit confused.  The research of these fake little LLC's is important to all landowners who want a fair deal without paying a percentage to someone else.  What about that do you not understand?  Our world is huge, so, if you want to make it smaller, take a hike.

Permalink Reply by Raf22 on July 24, 2013 at 12:27pm

at what point do people go to jail for all this lying and cheating?  isn't a lawyer suppose to protect against this kinda stuff?

Permalink Reply by Tim Tarr on July 27, 2013 at 5:10am

at what point do people go to jail for all this lying and cheating?

raf22

Very good question!

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” ― Margaret Thatcher

Permalink Reply by Samuel J. Orr on July 24, 2013 at 3:29pm

Truth is always a complete defense. Facts like Dux had no telephone. Facts like Dux (apparently falsely  ) alleged it was a leader in the industry, had done business in 20 states, and yet had no listed telephone   #. Facts like the company clearly could not have years of experience, given that it was formed only in October of 2012. Facts like SEOC and Wells never provided answers to any of the questions that were posed on the website, questions  that any prudent landowner might reasonably want answers to before signing a lease. Facts like apparently none of the DUX leases were paid or recorded. Jesse, if you can provide some research that gives any credence to John Wells, DUX, SEOC or VORTEX; it would be welcome. Many of us have spent a lot of time doing research. I think all of us hoped that DUX was legitimate. Most of us very soon came to the conclusion that DUX had no money to pay any landowners unless it was able to flip the leases. Go back and read the posts.

Permalink Reply by Seeker on July 25, 2013 at 7:01am

Vortex claims to have an office in Texas but is not registered (as required) with the Texas Secretary of State to do business in Texas.

A search of the Texas Secretary of State’s website listing companies registered in the State of Texas shows no listing for Vortex Energy LLC or any active name similar to it. It appears that Vortex Energy LLC cannot legally do business in Texas.

Vortex Energy LLC claims to have an office at 222 Pennbright, Suite 155, Houston, Texas 77090 (the address listed for Vortex on the Watertown Group lease).

As Landowner1 has discovered (see post above) it appears that Advanced Fabric Technology / Gulf Stream Fabrication occupies that office and that the person answering the phone there has never heard of Vortex Energy LLC. Evidently Vortex is using another company’s office as their mailing address.

According to the Texas Secretary of State’s website, because Vortex Energy LLC is a Delaware LLC but doing business in Texas it is required to register with the Texas Secretary of State as a “foreign entity” (See link: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/foreignfaqs.shtml )

The Texas Secretary of State defines a foreign or out of state entity http://www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/foreign_outofstate.shtml  (see below) :

“Foreign or Out-of-State Entities

Whether an entity is domestic or foreign does not depend on the location of the principal business office. Instead, it depends on where the entity was formed and what law governs its internal affairs. If an organization was formed under, and the internal affairs are governed by, the laws of a jurisdiction other than Texas, the organization is a “foreign entity.” We sometimes refer to foreign entities as out-of-state entities to reinforce the concept that entities formed in other U.S. states are foreign entities, as well as entities formed outside of the United States.”

To search for companies registered to do business in Texas go to the following page of the Texas Secretary of State’s website:  http://www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/sosda/index.shtml  and click on the enter site button at the bottom.

That takes you to this page https://direct.sos.state.tx.us/acct/acct-login.asp  where you click on the “temporary login form” that you fill out to get free temporary access.

Entering Vortex Energy LLC in the search box pulls up any company name with Vortex or similar spellings and Energy. There is no listing for Vortex Energy LLC.

Permalink Reply by Eric on July 26, 2013 at 2:54am

I see a lot of info posted on this site, people criticizing one another, badmouthing decisions, and lamenting over things that really have no bearing on them.  Many of the comments I see i truly do not understand.  How can any of you relate to to the people in the area?  every story is different and insulting their intelligence and decision making does not endear other to the expression of your message.  I would like to think that everyone on here is okay with gas and oil companies making money.  One question I would ask is if there are so many sweeter deals out there, why aren't the approaching SOEC?  Mineral and gas rights are only worth what someone is willing to pay us for them no matter how valuable we "think" they are.  Could SOEC wait 5 years and get a better deal? Maybe.  Could they get a worse deal? Probably.  Time value of money is something everyone should consider when dealing with companies and their offers. For some there is a great burden borne by people to maintain and pay for these lands they lease and peace of mind is worth something to not have to carry that burden any further. 

Permalink Reply by Landowner1 on July 26, 2013 at 7:11am

Eric, you have raised a number of points and questions. There appear to be some misunderstandings, so allow us to address a few in a couple of posts.

“For some there is a great burden borne by people to maintain and pay for these lands they lease and peace of mind is worth something to not have to carry that burden any further.” 

It is because we are concerned about Utica / Marcellus landowners in general and Washington County landowners in particular that all of us have tried to help research DUX and Vortex and to get the facts out about them.

Many landowners were hurt when John Wells and SOEC pushed them to sign leases with DUX. Some landowners made financial commitments and decisions that they would not have made, were they not convinced by Wells and SOEC that in 120 days they would be paid. They knew they owned their mineral rights and were part of an attractive block of acreage, so they would have no reason to think they were not going to be paid. Other landowners had great plans for the money and had already spent it in their minds (which is very understandable, though unwise).

There is no excuse for John Wells and SOEC to have not done their due diligence and thoroughly researched DUX before they even considered doing business with them, let alone before they recommended that landowners sign a lease with DUX.

There is even less of an excuse that they continued to push landowners to sign with DUX when so many members of GMS had researched DUX and had revealed it to be a paper company with no assets, no telephone number, a one page website, run by a 30 year old part time real estate agent with no apparent oil and gas experience, out of small $95,000 single family house in a residential neighborhood. Tim Neal, John Well’s partner in SOEC participated in that discussion as drillBABY, therefore there is no way Wells and SOEC can claim they did not know about DUX before the lease signing – and still they pushed landowners to sign leases with DUX.

Rather than learn from their mistakes, it appears that Wells and SOEC repeated them when pushing landowners to sign the Vortex leases.

Out of desperation in trying to warn landowners in Washington County, members of GMS are making forceful statements. They are doing so not to benefit themselves but to somehow break through to the landowners and help them understand how likely they are to be hurt by the Vortex deal.

Permalink Reply by Eric on July 26, 2013 at 7:58am

Landowners were hurt because of their own poor choices, not Mr Wells. Nobody put a gun to their head and asked them to make these choices. I do not think anyone would argue that.  Are you all saying that if 2 offers were had at lets say 4000 and 3000 that they should have taken the 3000 offer because the 4000 offer on paper didn't look good? I certainly believe they could have been more cautious(read professional), but It would be disingenuous to assert that they performed a negligent act of some sort.  If they perform the same short sided leadership they displayed with DUX it would be safe to say their mothers would probably never trust them with their assets, let alone their neighbors and friends. 

Permalink Reply by Landowner1 on July 26, 2013 at 12:11pm

Landowners were hurt because Mr. Wells did not do adequate due diligence on DUX, ignored warning signs raised by GMS members and landowner group members, assured landowners that DUX could pay for the leases and pushed them to sign the leases.

Landowners did make poor choices: 1) to sign up with Wells and SOEC; 2) to trust that Wells and SOEC were competent and were looking out for the landowners interests; 3) to believe Wells when he repeatedly assured them that he and SOEC had checked out DUX and that DUX had the money to pay for the leases; and 4) to not listen to the few landowners that had concerns about DUX and questioned Wells about them.

“Are you all saying that if 2 offers were had at lets say 4000 and 3000 that they should have taken the 3000 offer because the 4000 offer on paper didn't look good?”

We are saying that under those circumstances Wells and SOEC should have done their due diligence on DUX and presented it to the landowners so that they could make an informed decision about whether DUX was a legitimate oil and gas company, and therefore whether to accept the $4,000 offer.

Based on their trust in Wells / SOEC and their belief in what Wells was telling them the landowners made an understandable decision. Had Wells / SOEC provided them with accurate information they would probably have made a different decision.

You make it seem as though it was an either / or decision. As the lease offers were increasing and wells were being drilled in Washington County the third option would have been to tell Wells / SOEC to keep looking for a better offer.

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