Wishgard LLC out of PA has held several meetings and group signings in my area. They are offering 600 an acre with a 16% royalty. Several people have signed, but my close neighbors and I are leery of the contract. Has anyone had experience with this company? There has been no activity that I’m aware of in this area as far as drilling.
I would be wise to get several of you together to get a good oil and gas attorney to review the lease as the drafts are not generally in the mineral owner’s favor. Operators frequently use a contract land company to do their leasing.
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@Buck22 Not much activity in Wood, nor does there appear to be any activity in the next few years. I’m curious what they are hoping to gain from this lease. 16% WITHOUT deductions is not bad. $600/acre for a non producing area is not bad either. Never hurts to ask for more though! @M_Barnes is very right, they never offer you the best on the first go. This is a business and they are out to maximize profits. Talk to others in your area and shop this rate around, also talk to the landman/company and see what they think is going on there because WV DEP maps don’t show anything promising.
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@M_Barnes Thanks for the reply. I agree with getting the lease looked at, it does not appear to be in our favor for sure.
@Nick-TBM I wondered if there was anything coming to Wood and why there is such a push to get these leases. There is another round of meetings scheduled this month pertaining to several districts in Wood County and one in Jackson county. It sure seems like a great deal of money to lease a lot of non-producing properties.
My family lives in Wood County and I’ve been provided with the lease form. If memory serves, Wishgard puts together landowner groups to entice operators to buy the package, so I doubt they’re actually working for a real operator, but I don’t know. I assume this is a speculatively play only. Cabot drilled a non-productive well about 10 years ago between Parkersburg and Lubeck, testing the Utica/Pt Pleasant and P&A’d it (someone with more gumption may want to confirm this), and Wood County always seemed to be too far east for Utica, too far south for Marcellus. I’ve seen the lease form - it does not have depth limitations or any pugh clause, there is a 5-year option to extend, and warranties by lessor. There is also the weird “market enhancement” clause vs. a straight no deducts or gross proceeds. Also, importantly, the OOP gives several outs, as most OOPs do, but this one ties owners together and says something about adjacent owners’ parcels not having clear title. My take on this is Wishgard is paying the $1.00 or whatever consideration to tie the acreage up for 120 days and market it to a bigger fish or operator. If you can get a depth clause, or better yet, lease only the target formation (I suspect there isn’t one at this stage, which will let you know it’s just a lease flip play), a pugh clause, no deducts, cut the option and warranty, it’s not bad. I’d also want to ask for 3/16th (time for App Basin to get the 18.75% that everywhere else gets). There’s also no chance I’d sign a limited POA even though it states they aren’t allowed to make substantive changes to the form. Regardless, I’d want to be in the know ahead of time.
How does it not appear to be in our favor? I am confused about a lot of this and we signed with Wishgard thinking we would at least get our lease money within 120 days. Are you saying that is not true? Why would they lease if there is not any oil in this area is my question or bother typing anyone up. I saw where they were sued several years ago along with Cabot also being sued (which we had signed with but we did get our lease money from them). I was leery of Wishgard but some relatives had already signed and there was not really any reason not to as it was already tied up. I have been told that they have reorganized and wondered if this is true and are they truly honoring leases in WV?
Word to the wise. NEVER hand over a lease without getting paid the same day…
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