Antero Division Orders for Tyler County & Wetzel County WV

[Davidstamm]

My great-grandfather owned and operated a grist mill in Iuka from the early 1890s until he sold his 28 acres in 1919. He retained a percentage of the mineral rights. The deed he conveyed only identified this one property in Tyler County (Township 2-17-3).

Over the past 6 months I’ve received 2 DOs from Antero for 8 wells (Marcellina 2H, Emmons 1H & 2H, Crystal 1H & 2H, Spili 1H and Peach Fork 1H & 2H) that don’t cross this parcel. I don’t have any documentation verifying ownership of mineral rights for any parcels these lines cross. Each of the DOs give a Property ID that I imagine is an internal number to Antero since it doesn’t correspond to a West Virginia parcel number.

When asked, Antero gave one parcel number for Spili 1H and Peach Fork 1H and 2H and one parcel number for Emmons 1H & 2H and Crystal 1H and 2H. I have used the West Virginia DEP map to trace the natural gas lines from well through the parcels these horizontal wells cross. Only one line crosses each of the parcels. The others are close, but cross under adjacent parcels.

So, do I go back to Antero and point this out? Are there any public resources I can use to identify the mineral rights I own for parcels in Tyler and Ellsworth Counties? I have tried the Tyler County site (IDX Search Tyler County) but have found that I don’t know enough to parse my search criteria.

And just a general question. Did our great-grandparents make a habit of buying mineral rights for other properties in West Virginia? Any help would certainly be appreciated!

[JoeRossi46]

Ask Antero to provide you with title.

[SafetyPin]

My guess is you are probably in a Section spacing order that is including your mineral acres. I would check the pooling orders to see if you’ve ever been pooled.

[Kyle_Nuttall]

It looks like you have ancestors who bought mineral rights. It happens, especially if those ancestors were involved in the oil and gas industry.

The fractures propagate from about 300 feet to maybe as much as 1000 feet around the horizontal well, and a couple thousand feet up. If your property is within this area, your gas will be getting sucked out of the ground. There’s debate about exactly how far out the fractures go, but they’ve studied it pretty extensively over the past decade or so, and have a decent idea about the whole thing at this point. The companies want to get as much gas out of the ground as possible, to increase profit, so they’re motivated to know how far apart to space the horizontals.

Since it looks like your ancestor bought and sold oil and gas, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to research their name in the county records. Do a search for “[county name] IDX” and that’ll bring up the website. You’ll have to mess around with the different search functions, and probably have to call the record room a time or two, but it may be worth it.