. . . then my priority will be finding a way to keep Antero from impacting my surface with their pad, while I sit and wait for force-pooling to get passed.
At this point Antero seems to want to push all the crud over onto my surface when they put the Marcellus pad on neighboring property. How do I keep them from doing that?
I mean, I am a mineral rights owner, so I don't see how they can legally impact my property when I'm not going to lease my Marcellus interests.
Is it time for me to give the wvsoro people a heads up that I may be needing a little help from them, then?
Or do I just wait to see what happens before I start going all legal/activist on them?
What do you recommend I do to protect my surface, if they are never going to buy it at a decent price along with the minerals they want so much?
What the company may end up doing is gathering up leases near a property and then drill around the non leased property. They don't care and deal with non leasing folks daily. They just branch out in another direction until they get the required acreage to drill. They think all mineral property is there just for them since you can't drill on it yourself. That is why they come knocking to lease and not to buy. Forced pooling was introduced and fizzled again. A lot of states have some form of it and you can best believe Wv. will end up with it within the next five years. Why? because the oil company is a main player in bringing money to the state. Where does Wv rank in income per capita? Money talks. 5 years is nothing for the company to wait everyone out. Don't you just love free enterprise??
The last map I saw showed the pad to the immediate northwest of my property. Maybe they only want to drill horizontally northwest, but if they plan on going southeast at all with a horizontal from that pad location, I'm not sure how they could do so without leasing/buying my interests. Of course, I am not an expert--so maybe they have a way. Who knows, 7,000 or so feet may allow for some kind of fancy diagonal move before going southeast.
Something else for me to research for fun in my spare time I guess.
JNK, I would start early and get on record. Oil companies are big on it's easier to get forgiveness than permission and believe that it's all a matter of money. Since they would be paying you from the proceeds from the production of your own minerals, paying you with your own money, they aren't too worried about it because whatever is left over is profit and it isn't really coming out of their pocket. Be on record so they can't just say they were in negotiations and just went ahead assuming that an agreement would be reached. Take the plausable deniability away from them. You are not in negotiations, you told them no and they knowingly trespass if they go forward.
Forced pooling isn't all bad in my opinion, it depends on what form it takes. In ND the force pooled mineral interest can become a working interest after the well pays out and receive the lions share of the money. In Ok, the forced pooling takes the form of a mandatory lease, allowing you a selection of bonus and royalty from a limited number of choices, probably none of which might be to your liking, I think there should always be a $0 and 25% option, because the cash and 1/8, less cash and 3/16, slight or no cash and 1/5, all greatly favor the operator. Maybe the mineral owner does not want to sell 80% plus of their minerals for a pittance and endure risk of never receiving royalty from the operator. Maybe the mineral owner would like to be paid a decent amount for enduring risk along with the operator. There would be very little forced pooling in my opinion if operators offered 30% royalty to lease, it would not put the operators out of business, but they won't do it because they know they can get the minerals for less eventually, all they have to do is wait.
RW, you hit the nail on the head with the force pooling topic. There are some who do not want to ever lease but, those who do feel they should be compensated more. I would hope that when forced pooling does occur here that the operating company would have to compensate an owner to a higher amount. Giving the owner a minimal amount and moving on sounds somewhat like thievery. As you say, it depends on what form the pooling issue takes. Some states are just basically taking away the mineral owners property and letting the companies have at it. When a court determines how much you get for your property is not in most folks liking. By the way, who has been paying taxes on that property since say 1850? Sure was not the court or the company.
I still believe and have seen clauses on adding the tax issue to a lease. The company should help pay the real estate taxes on the minerals after the county comes in and raises the taxes after production. The company is benefiting more than the owner, so they should help with the higher tax burden. Any thoughts on this?
WV, there are too many tax issues to name, one of which is the state making as much or more than the mineral owner from each well in taxes. Sounds like a conflict of interest to me when they are neutral in the oil companies favor. I would have no problem with the oil or pipeline companies paying the mineral/surface owners taxes because really the surface owner has a valid diminished value. If your car is in an accident and repaired, you have a diminished value loss, even if you can't tell it was wrecked after being repaired, you can't build over a pipeline and who wants to live next to an oil/gas well? Noise, traffic, dust, the neighborhood has definitely gone down hill. Paying the property taxes might be a yearly recognition of the fact that the damage continues.
A really vocal minority could make changes but it's hard because the other side speaks with cash and campaign contributions which speak loudest of all.
Thanks for posting this thread. It makes sense why folks want to pay not much more to outright purchase than you can receive for a lease. I failed to understand that up until this point.