So many forum places to put this... Rural Living, Business, Finance & Open. I chose this one as I'm considering it somewhat as a business matter.
There's some very large veins of shale that go from NE PA and head WSW (lower NY, into W PA and skirt into E OH and NW WV) that contain an incredible amount of natural gas. There's 2 layers of shale, the Marcellus shale (at about 5,000 ft depth) and Utica shale (7-10,000 ft depth).
So, gas companies want to lease land and drill to get the gas. It's estimated that there may be enough gas down there to supply the entire USA for at least a couple years so it's worth quite a bit of money.
They're scoping out our area now. They want to lease the mineral rights from landowners. Payment is done as an initial Lease (they pay you to lock in the rights to the gas under your land for somewhere around 5 years with renewal clauses), then royalties on the gas that's extracted.
The $ offers seem pretty decent. Each of my deeded properties is under 25 acres so they couldn't do surface activities on my parcels and the only thing they could possibly do is run gas lines under the surface (hopefully in an existing right-of-way).
Anyone have any experience with these types of leases? What does one need to watch out for?
There's some very large veins of shale that go from NE PA and head WSW (lower NY, into W PA and skirt into E OH and NW WV) that contain an incredible amount of natural gas. There's 2 layers of shale, the Marcellus shale (at about 5,000 ft depth) and Utica shale (7-10,000 ft depth).
So, gas companies want to lease land and drill to get the gas. It's estimated that there may be enough gas down there to supply the entire USA for at least a couple years so it's worth quite a bit of money.
They're scoping out our area now. They want to lease the mineral rights from landowners. Payment is done as an initial Lease (they pay you to lock in the rights to the gas under your land for somewhere around 5 years with renewal clauses), then royalties on the gas that's extracted.
The $ offers seem pretty decent. Each of my deeded properties is under 25 acres so they couldn't do surface activities on my parcels and the only thing they could possibly do is run gas lines under the surface (hopefully in an existing right-of-way).
Anyone have any experience with these types of leases? What does one need to watch out for?