Chamber of WV House of Delegates, 2/9/18

From an Article by Nick Visser, Huffington Post, February 12, 2018

A woman was removed from the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday after she used her testimony about a fossil fuel-sponsored piece of legislation to list industry donations to state lawmakers.

Lissa Lucas ventured to Charleston to voice her objections to the proposed bill, HB 4268, which would give oil and gas companies the right to drill on private land with the consent of just 75 percent of the landowners. Current law mandates energy companies obtain 100 percent approval before they can develop land, allowing a single person to hold up drilling.

Lucas, also a Democratic candidate for West Virginia’s seventh district, used her testimony to read a list of donations that lawmakers had received from oil and gas companies, information that was publicly available. But shortly into her allotted time, Lucas was ordered to refrain from making “personal comments” about members of the House Judiciary Committee.

“The people who are going to be speaking in favor of this bill are all going to be paid by the industry,” Lucas said, noting that “the people who are going to be voting on this bill are often also paid by the industry.”

“I have to keep this short because the public only gets a minute and 45 seconds while lobbyists can throw a gala at the Marriott with whiskey and wine and talk for hours to the delegates,” she added.

As Lucas read the list of donations, her microphone was cut off. She asked the committee to allow her to finish, and when lawmakers refused, she told them to “drag me off.”

“As I tried to give my remarks at the public hearing this morning on HB4268 in defense of our constitutional property rights, I got dragged out of House chambers,” Lucas wrote on her personal blog. “Allow me to point out that if Delegates genuinely think that my talking about who their campaign donors are ― and how much they’re receiving from corporate lobbyists/corporate PACs ― is an ad hominem attack… then they should be refusing those donations.”

The bill was later passed by the committee and will go to the lower House and state Senate for a full vote, where it is expected to pass, Newsweek reported. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) has said he will sign the bill into law.

Lucas stood by her actions in her blog post, saying lawmakers should feel guilty about these campaign contributions.

“Refuse any donation that, if someone mentions it, makes you feel personally attacked,” she wrote. “Because that’s not an attack. That’s guilt. And you SHOULD be feeling that. Let that guilt about who you’re really working for inform your votes; don’t let the corporate money do it.”

Committee meeting at WV Legislature

From Julie Archer, WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, January 27, 2018

Dear Friends,

The 2018 legislative session is in full swing and you may have heard on the news or via social media that a “co-tenancy” bill (HB 4268) is now being considered by the House Energy Committee. This is one of a series of oil and gas development bills that have been introduced in recent years in various forms and degrees, and which is sometimes referred to as “forced pooling.” A bill passed by the Senate last year (SB 576) contained two forms: “lease integration” or what we call “invisible ink,” and “co-tenancy,” which we called “majority rules.”

HB 4268 deals only with what the industry calls “co-tenancy,” which we are now calling the “cousins” bill. Like last year’s bill HB 4268 is problematic in a number of ways which we’ve outlined in detail below, and we oppose the bill unless these issues are addressed by the committee.

Please contact members of the House Energy Committee and voice your concerns about HB 4268. Urge them to prioritize other legislation before them that will help those most affect by drilling and natural gas infrastructure.

These include HB 2990, which would require continuous monitoring of air, noise, dust, and particulates as recommended by the studies mandated by the 2011 Horizontal Well Act; and HB 3011, which would allow property owners to share financially in the gains from the various interstate pipeline projects, if they are approved and built. (More information about these bills is available here.)

Click here for a list of House Energy Committee members with their phone number and email address, followed by a ‘list’ of emails for all members that can easily be copied and pasted into the ‘To’ field of your email.

On Thursday, the committee heard an explanation of HB 4268 and then delayed further consideration of the bill until Tuesday.

Please act now and make your voice heard. And, thank you for your assistance.

>>> Julie Archer, Executive Director, WVSORO
West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization
1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, WV 25311

info@wvsoro.org …… 304.346.5891

Monthly Natural Gas Production 2008 - 2016

Mineral owners seek information about gas well laws

From an Article by David Beard, Morgantown Dominion Post, May 26, 2017

Mineral owners gathered Thursday evening to learn about some potential changes in gas well law that could diminish property rights, and to toss around ideas for action. Most of the talk in the meeting room at the Ramada Inn focused on a state Supreme Court Case called the Leggett Case and an industry-backed Senate bill that may rise from the dead, SB 576.

About 20 people turned out to hear from Tom Susman, representing West Virginians for Property Rights; Tom Huber, vice president of the West Virginia Royalty Owners Association; and Steve Butler, administrator of the West Virginia Farm Bureau.

Leggett Case

In the Leggett case, the Doddridge County plaintiffs sued EQT Corp., alleging it has been wrongly deducting post-production expenses from their royalty checks, amounting to 25-30 percent of their rightful income, since 2010.

Last November, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. But on Jan. 1, new Justice Beth Walker replaced Brent Benjamin and the court decided to take up the case again. Rethinking a case is rare, Huber and Susman said, and may indicate the court plans to reverse itself.

The case hinges on state code language mandating royalties be paid on gas extracted “at the wellhead.” As Huber explained, changes in the way gas is sold have clouded the issue. Instead of being sold where it exits the well, gas is now shipped to hubs and sold there. So the court seeks to resolve ambiguity in the meaning of “at the wellhead.”

Huber said that the practice of post-production deductions not only deprives the mineral owner of due income, it can and does lead to negative royalty checks where the company indicates expenses exceed the royalty. The Dominion Post previously wrote about this occurring across the country and described some of the lawsuits that ensued.

“We really feel that this is one of the biggest thefts for royalty owners in the state,” Huber said.

Lewis County mineral owner Tom Kopp further explained to The Dominion Post about his situation. His land has three vertical wells owned by three companies, just a few hundred feet apart. The same amount of gas is produced from each, which gets shipped the same distance. Two companies pay full royalties, but one stopped two years ago, claiming transportation expenses were too high.

When Kopp attempted to dispute the charges, the company threatened to start issuing negative royalties — essentially charging them to take the gas they own.

Huber said that if the court does reverse itself, then mineral owners and their supporters in the Legislature will need to make a full-court press to get some protective legislation pass-ed next session.

“We are at a disadvantage,” he said. “We don’t have the deep pockets. We don’t have the fleets of lawyers.”

WV State Senate Bill 576

SB 576 dealt with two topics. One is cotenancy — owners of a single natural gas tract. It allowed the owners of 75 percent of the royalty interest to consent to a lease, in the face of unconsenting or unlocatable cotenants. This part posed few problems for stakeholders.

The other part did. It dealt with joint development, or forced pooling as some call it. It allowed whole tracts to be pooled into a unit unless a lease specifically forbids it. This gained little support outside of the industry.

The bill passed the Senate, but died in the House. Huber said some fear it may be added to the call of the current special session, or another later this summer. Many agree it will return next January.

Opponents regard joint development as a kind of privatized eminent domain — taking land for commercial gain instead of public benefit.

On the other hand, area gas development companies have been posting Facebook advertisements touting a resurrected version of SB 576 as a way to create jobs and boost the economy.

Butler said that the bill contained no real protections for surface owners. It required compensation, but allowed the owner no say in the location of the well — which could disrupt or destroy the production of a farm.

Huber, Susman and Butlers said they aren’t opposing gas well development. They want fair treatment for royalty owners and surface owners. Susman said this was the fourth meeting they’ve held and they plan more around the state.

They plan to work on a package of bills to protect property owner rights and to develop some educational materials to inform property owners and legislators about the issues and needed legislation.

>  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

West Virginia Top Court Reverses Ruling on Gas Royalties

Mineral Owners have Constitutional Rights, too!

Gas industry tries to steal property rights of mineral owners’

Letter to the Editor, Bill Suan, Huntington Herald-Dispatch, March 3, 2017

EQT Corp. flexed its political muscle at the West Virginia Senate Judiciary meeting concerning Senate Bill 244. We need to be loud and clear of our opposition to this bill and the effect it will have on West Virginia mineral owners.

The bill allows for a simple majority, or 50.1 percent, of “co-tenants” to sign a lease for all tenants. This is the unfair taking of our rights and benefits of private property. It gives the industry immunity to lawsuits from the other 49.9 percent of the owners of a tract. Well-trained land men will prey on the most vulnerable co-tenants and the remainder will not be able to negotiate terms on their property.

The excuse the industry is using for this bill is unknown owners are holding up production. That is a lie! West Virginia has a code that allows production if there are unknown owners; the royalties are held in escrow for seven years then go to the surface owner. SB 244 is FORCED POOLING ON STEROIDS!

SB245 and companion bill HB2688, the right-to-trespass bill, allows gas industry surveyors to trespass on private property without permission. The law overturns a court ruling in favor of landowners. The industry will use its political power and “we are above the law” attitude to bully West Virginia landowners. The industry does not like losing in court, so it goes to our lawmakers to get the law changed the way the industry wants it. Landowners have a right to include or exclude people on our property, including private companies.

Landowners and their insurers are liable for these legal trespassers while on their property.

A big win for mineral owners in the Supreme Court was a ruling that companies must pay a full one-eighth royalty. The gas industry has been taking deductions out of royalty checks for various reasons, such as enhancement fees, transportation fees, etc. Some royalty owners are getting negative balances on their statements. EQT, upset with the Supreme Court loss, waited until its “bought and paid for” Justice Beth Walker was sworn in and then asked the court to rule again, which the court agreed to do. Justice Walker had $5 million in outside groups spending money to get her elected. She should recuse herself from hearing the case.

The small mineral owner in West Virginia will spend the money they earn from production in West Virginia. Why let these out-of-state corporations steal from our citizens to send the money to out-of-state investors? Are we going to let another natural resource be stolen from us? When are we going to say, “We are tired of our state being 50th”?

Large campaign contributions have given the industry a sense of entitlement this session. Senator Mitch Carmichael is trying to deliver these bills as a gift to the industry.

Call House and Senate members and let them know there is strong opposition to these bills. Call our governor, who promised to bring our economy out of 50th place, and ask him how he plans to do that by taking our private property rights and giving them to out-of-state corporations. I believe we have been down that road with coal.

There was a statement made that voters have short memories. We have a fight ahead of us in a non-election year. Let’s not give up, take time to make your voice heard in opposition of these bills.

Also, tell lawmakers to do their job. West Virginia has a budget crisis. We can’t cut our way out of this mess. Last year there was a special session at a large cost of taxpayers to put a temporary patch on the budget. We are going down the same path this year. Governor Justice proposed tax hikes; nobody likes the thought of taxes, but the state has to operate. Legislative leadership needs to work with the governor and fix the budget. Why are we dealing with pooling when land and mineral owners made their opposition clear the last two years?

We need a budget that doesn’t put all the taxes on small business and West Virginia citizens. These billion dollar gas industries hedged their prices and are not suffering financially. If they were financially strapped, they could not afford the army of professional lobbyists trying to take our property rights. They also could not afford the millions they donate to political campaigns. A flat nickel tax per mcf of gas would go a long way toward balancing the state’s budget. The industry would not be hurt by this tax as much as a family working for minimum wage would be harmed financially by a 10-cents-a-gallon tax increase on gasoline.

Tell lawmakers the budget needs to be fixed this session and leave private property owners alone. The natural gas industry needs to negotiate with property owners and quit trying to buy our legislators.

>>> Bill Suan is a resident of Lost Creek, West Virginia.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Southwestern Energy paid $5 billion for Marcellus & Utica holdings from Chesapeake Energy in December of 2014

Times are tough financially for frackers (and not very good for the rest of us either).

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Seeking Alpha, an investment newsletter, carried an article called “Natural Gas: Death By One Thousand Paper Cuts… Then A Huge Axe Wound.” That author was thinking about the problems of investors who speculate on natural gas, trying to buy low and sell high. For them it has been coming out the other way around, buying high and selling low, all last year, but especially in the fall. The article was written at the end of October, when gas was at $2.281 per mmbtu. It had been $3 in May. Marcellus Gas.org gives November cloud sourced prices to royalty owners of $1.73/Mcf. (The Mcf in this case having slightly more energy than the mmbtu unit.)

The real hit though is being felt by the over-extended companies that find and produce natural gas. The case of Chesapeake is familiar, the flamboyant Aubry McClendon, who started the company got it seriously in trouble and they eventually kicked him out. The new CEO has said more than half of the deals Chesapeake had when he arrived were clear losers. They are still in trouble. Chesapeake stock lost 22% in 2014 and the CEO compensation was $14.7 million, earning it the position of 25th in Yahoo finance list of worse-performing CEO’s for that year.

That list is interesting. Looking further at it, Nabors, a company that actually does the drilling, made it at 24th; Weatherford at 19th, Kosmos 17th; Continental Resources, 14th; Southwestern (which bought Chesapeake’s old office in Jane Lew, my Post Office town), 13th at a 30% price decrease; Range Resources, 10th, with a loss of 35% in stock value; WPX, a big fracker at 8th; Whiting Petroleum Corporation, 6th; Cobalt International Energy, 4th, Ensco PLC (an offshore company), 3rd with a 47% loss; and in first place, Linn Energy, with a drop of 67% in 2014. Then an 80 % drop in 2015. Linn CEO compensation was $10 million in 2014!

“Energy companies” were the worst performing sector of the S&P. Real Money, an investment site, recently had an article “Balance Sheet Worries Spell Doom for These 4 Energy Names.”

The first on the Real Money list was – Chesapeake! It was the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2015. (List above was for 2014.) As of the third quarter, Chesapeake Energy has $3.6 billion in current assets but it has $4.6 billion in current liabilities.

Second on the list was Southwestern, also mentioned above. The article says, “This Texas-based company proved that one company’s trash is another company’s, well, trash. Late in 2014, Southwestern Energy acquired Chesapeake Energy’s wells in the Marcellus and Utica shales.” The stock fell 74% in 2015. “As of third-quarter earnings, the company has $570 million in current assets to cover $782 million in near-term liabilities. While the company does not have any debt coming due in 2016, it does have a hefty debt load coming due in 2018, which includes two notes that total $950 million and a term loan the company announced in November for $750 million.

Ultra Petroleum is third, its shares fell 82% in 2015.

Fourth is Consol Energy. It bought the exploration and production business of Dominion Resources in 2010 (including drilling rights under the Lost Creek Storage Field, where my surface lies). The article states, “Fortunately, the company does not have any significant debt obligations coming due until 2022. However, Consol Energy has $970 million in current assets to cover $1.9 billion in short-term liabilities, as of the third quarter. Shares of the company were down 77% in 2015.”

As I mentioned in a previous article, somewhere in the high 30′s of exploration and production companies (out of a total of somewhere in the 50′s ) have taken out Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This allows reorganization. Chapter 7  (liquidation) bankruptcy causes the company to disperse its holdings to creditors and that  is the end of it.

Public opinion is slowly coming around, too. According to Leslie Stahl in 60 minutes, “Taking short cuts and human error are endemic to this industry.” “Natural gas has been the ugly step child of the national energy debate, never getting the political muscle of coal or oil.” Except in West Virginia, of course.

The fracking industry doesn’t want federal regulation. You’d think dealing with one set of rules for all states would make it far easier for them. But the federal government is capable of research and is somewhat less subject to direct political influence. It is easy to get the puff pieces that influence people who never see fracking from legislators and their support for favorable legislation. Some of it is pretty obvious. Recently a legislator published a favorable article, and subsequently a permit was published for a well on his property.

Another problem for frackers is the regular appearance of new research that contradicts their pretense that “fracking never hurt anyone.” Research on health hazards, property value declines, public water contamination, and other nuisances has been coming out for years.

Some recent health research titles are: “Fracking plays active role in generating toxic metal wastewater, study finds,” “Fracking’ Linked to Low Birth Weight Babies,” and “New study connects fracking with lower sperm count.” Some are quite ominous: “Malignant human cell transformation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling flow back water.”

The recent connection between fracking and earthquakes is very bad publicity, since these people have a clear claim to monetary damages. The huge waste of gas by the fracking industry is under attack. The Porter Ranch leak going on for months in California is bad news for the industry. It is comparable to the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The article “Why are Range Resources executives selling their stock?” created considerable interest. “Texas Fracking Zone Emits 90% More Methane Then EPA Estimated” ties government complicity to corporate interest, as did the Public Herald’s report finding that the Pennsylvania DEP fracking complaint investigations are “Cooked & Shredded.” All the articles about divestment of oil and gas stocks by large owners must have hurt also.

Times are tough, fellows. When your costs for removing fracked oil and gas are $20 to $40 more per barrel or barrel-of-oil-energy-equivalent, you face serious competition from the Saudis, Russians (who have five and a half times as much gas, all conventional gas. compared to all the U. S. reserves, including fracked gas) and others overseas. That $20 to $40 difference doesn’t count the damage you do in the fracking fields, either. When the general public catches on to this, it is going to be worse, too. With the cost of wind energy decreasing by 60% in the last six or seven years and the unlimited sun power being captured with greater and greater efficiency, it’s going to be real tough. Fellows, your political activities are not enough to overcome your cost disadvantages now in the near term.  So what will the future hold?

WV House of Delegates

Forced Pooling in W.Va.: The Plot Thickens with Industrial Proposals

From Glynis Board, WV Public Broadcasting, December 15, 2015

In a dramatic turn of events last year at the statehouse, a bill died on a tie vote during the last night of the 2015 legislative session. The issue was whether companies should be allowed to force mineral owners to sell their gas if the majority of their neighbors have already agreed to sell. Forced pooling. The topic resurfaced during interim meetings last month and is expected to be a priority this legislative session.

Death by Tie Vote

The controversial 2015 bill would have allowed drillers to force owners to sell their minerals if a company could get 80 percent of the owners in a land parcel to agree to the drilling. The bill also specified that the 20 percent of mineral owners forced to sell would still get paid for their proportion of gas drilled. The terms of the sale would be decided by the existing, but modified Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. A board comprised of industry, government, and community stakeholders.

Industry representatives have been pushing forced pooling legislation at the Capitol since the Horizontal Well Control Act was passed in 2011. They say pooling is necessary to make sure gas resources aren’t wasted (§22C-9-6.). Opponents say it amounts to an illegal property grab. The West Virginia Royalty Owner’s Association used to be the loudest of opponents, but Vice President Thomas Huber joined statehouse delegate Woody Ireland in promoting forced pooling legislation last year. Huber says he was involved in shaping that legislation.

“Those negotiations were tense, they were difficult,” Huber recalled, “but we actually came out of that with an impressive bill that protected property owner rights while giving gas companies the ability to efficiently develop the gas in this state.”

But that bill died during the last hours of the session when some legislators pulled support at the last minute, resulting in a tie vote.

Pro-Forced Pooling Bill

A revised bill has since been written, which Huber says is even better for surface and mineral owners than last year’s bill was. Huber organized and moderated discussions around the state over the past several months to collect ideas and discuss possible implications of new legislation.

The main thrust of his argument is that in exchange for providing companies with a legal pooling method, property owners get protections and rights to negotiate the terms of developing the gas.

“I think we want the minerals developed responsibly, efficiently, and with as minimal disturbance of surface property as possible, and the maximum amount of money coming back into the state in the form of royalties, severance taxes, and jobs,” Huber said.

But plenty of people still oppose the revised bill.

Anti-Forced Pooling Bill

“There are two basic groups. One that is opposed to developing natural resources and do not like the idea of oil and gas being developed and oppose it on any grounds, and then there’s a group who are opposing the forced pooling bill, of which I am one, because we feel it takes unfair advantage of property or mineral rights owners,” said President of the Brooke-Ohio County Farm Bureau John Smith.

Smith campaigned hard against the pooling bill during the last legislative session.

“They have rewritten the bill. Two or three of the more objectionable things have been taken out, but there are still a lot of problems with that bill.”

Smith talks about tax concerns, constitutional and legal concerns, a lack of transparency and control regarding lease deals and restricted access to industry knowledge when he talks about the current draft of forced pooling legislation– just to name some of the major issues he has.

Smith admits he’s not opposed to pooling altogether, but he worries that the legislative process may take what he considers an already unsatisfactory bill and make it worse.

But the number of those who oppose the legislation alongside Smith has dwindled some. That is partly because there’s talk now about completely different legislation that would, for all sakes and purposes, make forced pooling a much simpler matter.

EQT’s Pooling Bill: “Lease Integration”

“There’s a competing proposal from a single gas company – EQT – that they call ‘lease integration,’” said Thomas Huber of the West Virginia Royalty Owner’s Association.  “They passed this proposal in Pennsylvania in 2013 and it’s been pretty devastating for many mineral owners and surface owners alike.”

The language in the Pennsylvania bill is a brief paragraph (section 2.1). It essentially allows companies to pool gas without consent from mineral owners as long as some kind of lease already exists, and as long as that lease doesn’t expressly prohibit pooling. The paragraph doesn’t mention surface owners, and it leaves royalty payments to the discretion of drillers. Some Pennsylvanians say the law has become a tool companies use “to beat down non-consenting property owners.”

“Where an operator has the right to develop multiple contiguous leases separately, the operator may develop those leases jointly by horizontal drilling unless expressly prohibited by a lease. In determining the royalty where multiple contiguous leases are developed, in absence of an agreement by all affected royalty owners, the production shall be allocated to each lease in such proportions as the operator reasonably determines to be attributable to each lease.”

In a phone conversation with West Virginia Public Broadcasting, an EQT spokesman said lease integration is a different and more efficient approach to developing gas, and that lawmakers would be wise to consider it in these days of low gas prices as industry needs incentive to continue to develop gas in West Virginia.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net and www.Marcellus-Shale.us

Delegate Ireland on House Floor

Delegate Woody Ireland (R – Ritchie County) Strongly Pushing Forced Pooling

From an Article by Liz McCormick, WV Public Broadcasting, November 17, 2015

Two bills that both died on the final night of the 2015 legislative session, resurfaced (Monday) during interim meetings – forced pooling and public charter schools. Both ideas erupted in debate in 2015, but (Monday’s) discussions were calm and reflective – but not without some concerns.

The separate discussions (Monday) on forced pooling and charter schools were mostly on how to make these controversial pieces of legislation work for lawmakers and interested parties on both sides of the issues.

First, forced pooling -

Delegate Woody Ireland chairs the House Energy Committee and sponsored the forced pooling legislation during the 2015 session. He told his fellow lawmakers (Monday) they must do something about pooling, even if they don’t all agree.

Forced pooling works like this – When companies prepare to drill a well, they create a giant rectangle of land parcels and then negotiate with the mineral owners within that rectangle for their gas rights.

The 2015 bill would have allowed companies to force owners to sell their minerals if they could get 80 percent of the owners in their parcel to agree to the drilling. However, the 20 percent forced to sell would still get paid for their proportion of gas drilled.

Democrats and some tea party Republicans were strongly against the bill, even showing their discontent through demonstrations on the floor. On the final night, the bill died on a tie vote in the House.

Now, Delegate Ireland has proposed a new pooling bill.

“With the passage of this bill, it would create a lot of land owner protections that currently aren’t available,” explained Seth Gaskins, counsel to the committees on Energy, “and the new title for the bill is the Horizontal Well Unitization of Landowner Protection Act. We wanted to make sure that this bill is known as a protection bill as well as a pooling bill.”

One aspect of this new bill would clarify the royalty rights of mineral owners. It would protect owners from deductions if they are included in a pool without their consent.

But there’s more – Ireland is also proposing what he calls a companion bill to compliment the Horizontal Well Unitization of Landowner Protection Act.

“This bill attempts to create some transparency,” Gaskins said, “in the royalty payment process as well as institute or establish rather, reporting more frequent report of production…reporting of production data to the office of oil and gas.”

While there was little debate during the meeting, a couple lawmakers did express some concern over the two new draft bills, but Ireland says the legislature has to make pooling a priority.

“I think what we have currently is an opportunity to really improve on personal property rights,” Ireland said, “If you look at the statutes that includes forced pooling from the deep strata, and you look at what’s going on in the industry with a movement towards the Utica shale, which is a deep strata, so if we don’t do something, we basically have forced pooling already.”

The second controversial piece of legislation taken up during November interims (Monday) – public charter schools. The 2015 bill on charter schools also died on the final night but not quite as loudly as forced pooling. See the original article here for that discussion.

Note:  Forced pooling is permitted already for so-called deep wells in WV, e.g. Utica shale wells —which are significantly more expensive.  But, giving forced pooling rights to the drilling & fracking companies is similar to giving eminent domain rights to pipeline companies.  Forced pooling takes rights from mineral owners and eminent domain takes rights from surface land owners.  DGN

WVU Extension Service Educational Programs:  July 7 and July 8, 2015

Public Meetings — Understanding Unitization of Interests or “Forced Pooling”

What is pooling? Who benefits? What does it mean to be “forced”?
What was in House Bill 2688 (Providing for the unitization of interests in drilling units in connection with all horizontal oil or gas wells)? What are the concerns with Forced Pooling? What were the concerns with House Bill 2688? What and when will new legislation be proposed?

Presenters: Joshua Fershee, Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development and Professor of Law, WVU College of Law; Delegate Lynwood “Woody” Ireland (R-Ritchie, 07); *Delegate Pat McGeehan (R-Hancock, 01); and **Senator Mike Romano (D-Harrison, 12). [Delegate McGeehan will attend the July 7 meeting only. Senator Romano will attend the July 8 meeting only.]

July 7 – Blaskovich Community Center, 4453 National Road, Triadelphia, WV (Ohio County)
July 8 – Doddridge County Park, Snowbird Road (County Rt. 50/16), West Union, WV (Doddridge County)

Both programs start at 6:00 p.m. For more information and directions, click here to download the flyer .  For questions, contact Georgette Plaugher, WVU Extension Service Natural Gas Team Coordinator at 304-329-1391 or via email at Georgy.Plaugher@mail.wvu.edu.

More information on forced pooling and SORO’s position can be found in the newsletter and on our website, www.wvsoro.org.

July 13: Not Your Grandparent’s Oil & Gas Industry, Meeting Two

About 200 folks showed up for a recent meeting hosted by our friends at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) titled “Not Your Grandparent’s Oil & Gas Industry.”

At that meeting, we heard from lawyers, including WV-SORO’s Dave McMahon and activists like Bill Hughes who have been dealing with shale-fracking issues in other parts of the state. Now OVEC is having a second meeting where folks can share, in a moderated discussion, stories of what is already happening in Wayne and surrounding counties.

Please plan to join us at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, July 13 at First Congregational UCC, 701 5th Ave, Huntington, WV.

WV-SORO will not have a speaking role at this meeting, but will have a representative present and available to help answer questions.

>>> Source: Julie Archer, WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, 1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, WV 25311

WV-SORO Phone: (304) 346-5891,  Internet: www.wvsoro.org

Attorneys at Law -- Moundsville

Understanding Renegotiation and Renewal of Natural Gas Leases

Speaker: Eric M. Gordon, Esquire,  from Berry, Kessler, Crutchfield, Taylor and Gordon, Attorneys at Law, Moundsville

Program at 6:00 PM with Question & Answer Session at 7:00 PM.

Tuesday, July 22: Wheeling, WV – Northern Community College, 1704 Market Street, Wheeling. Local Contact: Norm Schwetfeger at 304-234-3673

Thursday, July 24: West Union, WV – Doddridge County Park, West Union, WV. Local Contact: Dave Snively at 304-873-1801

PROGRAM SCHEDULE and DIRECTIONS

For general information, contact Georgette Plaugher, WVU Extension Service, Natural Gas Team Coordinator at 304-329-1391 or via e-mail Georgy.Plaugher@mail.wvu.edu.

Sponsored by: WVU Extension Service Natural Gas Education Team