How can Antero get a permit to drill an owner's interests without signing the owner?

West Virginia Mineral Rights Doddridge County, WV
1

Maybe I'm overreacting, but . . .

I just found out that back in May, Antero was permitted by the DEP for a horizontal that, according to Antero's paperwork submitted to the DEP, was surveyed to run through my interests. How is that possible when I have never signed anything?

I own all the interests under my surface. I know that because a different shallow driller has been paying me the royalties exclusively as the only interest owner under my surface for years for a shallow vertical. I have paid the taxes. I have deeds, wills, and earlier title searches by firms stating I own the interests. Yet, on the paperwork that Antero filed with the DEP showing the horizontal going through my property, my name is not listed as an interest owner--other names are listed on those parcels as the ones leasing.

Is that legal? Shouldn't the survey submitted by Antero be based on reality? And if it isn't, shouldn't they get in trouble for it?

My fear is that this could be a premeditated way for Antero to get around dealing with me, since I told them that I only wanted to sell instead of lease. Could it be that Antero simply found someone else who claimed, wrongly, to own the interests so that Antero could deal with that person instead of me--in essence stealing my mineral rights?

I had previously chalked up the sneaky ways of Antero's landmen as mere sloppiness. Now I am beginning to see an overall pattern that looks an awful lot like calculated malice. Antero has to know I own the interests, or why else would landmen claiming to represent Antero have been calling to attempt to get me to lease? This does not have the look of a mistake or an accident. This feels like an attempt to steal my interests that could be prosecuted criminally if all is as it appears to be to me.

Now that I think about it, if the permit was approved by the DEP back in May, how do I know Antero hasn't already begun to drill my interests?

I had assumed this sort of thing couldn't happen. I had even said so to another poster asking a similar question. I guess I was wrong.

I have a feeling things are about to get particularly ugly.

Maybe my first step should be contacting an investigative journalist in WV?

Thoughts? Observations? Am I overreacting?

2

Are you talking about the Department of environmental Protection? You need to find a good lawyer and do your ground work!

3

Yes. Drillers obtain permits from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. (http://www.dep.wv.gov/)

You are probably right about eventually needing a lawyer or two to sort out the approaching mess.

But it is surely a shame if we've come to the point in this land that hiring a lawyer is the only way to keep from being robbed of your possessions by a large corporation.

Prosecutors should handle criminal matters, in my opinion. And that is what this is starting to smell like to me.

4

JNK,

I was that poster with the similar question. :)

So maybe I do need to investigate this after all? Can you tell me how you found out this might be happening on your property?

Thanks!

JEK

5

I used a combination of skytruth and the wv dep site:

http://frack.skytruth.org/west-virginia-frack-alerts/doddridge_wv

http://www.dep.wv.gov/oil-and-gas/GI/Pages/WeeklyReports.aspx

Hope that helps.

Sorry for my bad answer earlier in the other thread.

Forgive me?

J. Krisch said:

JNK,

I was that poster with the similar question. :)

So maybe I do need to investigate this after all? Can you tell me how you found out this might be happening on your property?

Thanks!

JEK

6

Of course I do! Certainly not your fault! :)

Thanks for the info. I'll go search my parcel ID number and see if there's a permit on it without our consent. We do have a lawyer and he's been trying to reach the landman for awhile now and calls are not being returned. If I find a permit, I'm sure he'll be very interested in hearing about it.

Thanks!

7

If you are not receiving all the information you need, NO question or inquiry is overreacting! Not knowing creates confusion and mistrust. Continue in your quest for the answers, not only does it clear your doubts but will help others in the same or similar situation.

8

I used skytruth to get the farm name of the pad near my property, the name of the latest unit permitted on that pad, and the date for the permit for that unit.

That gave me enough information to find the permit for that latest permitted unit, at the WV DEP site, in the weekly list of permits issued.

Once I found that permit application, I found with it the survey map for the latest permitted unit from that pad. That survey map contained a smaller (not to scale) map of the pad, which listed the names of other units on the pad.

That gave me enough info to google those units and to locate other permits issued in relation to that pad, as listed on the WV DEP site.

A survey for one of those units showed the horizontal going through my property.

There's probably a much easier way to do all that, but I tend to fly by the seat of my pants when doing online research.

9

Thanks.

Seems to me the job of everyone in the industry is to find ways to hide the info from the surface and interest owners, in order to protect bargaining positions and keep owners at a disadvantage.

Drilling companies keep owners at arm's length by hiring professional misleaders to deal with the owners so that the company has the legal wiggle room to claim innocence in the damage the landmen do with their misinformation and disinformation.

There is every reason for a landmen to be sloppy on purpose. That climate is created by the policies of the company dealing with the landmen.

If a company actually wanted to create some goodwill, the company would have people whose jobs were to provide verifiable information to owners.

Why should any owner partner with a company for decades who doesn't care enough to deal directly with owners even when courting them for their interests?

If it is the policy of the company to create the playing field that now exists, that is a company that should be avoided by any reasonable interest owner.

If the company won't treat you reasonably well now, when desiring to partner with you, what makes you think it will have any reason to treat you fairly in the future?

Buy my interests outright, or leave me alone. I don't want to partner by means of a lease to a company who allows the lessors to be jerked around by "independent" landmen whose job it is to make sure owners don't know how much their interests are worth and to make sure the owner has as little information as possible on what is going on around them and why.

Not that I'm at all upset or anything. :-)

Eleanor Davis Casler said:

If you are not receiving all the information you need, NO question or inquiry is overreacting! Not knowing creates confusion and mistrust. Continue in your quest for the answers, not only does it clear your doubts but will help others in the same or similar situation.

10

By the way, those other permits for other units contain information in the application portion listing the expected thickness of the play and the expected depth to the play for that specific nearby geological location. Also good info to have for negotiation power, in my opinion.

11

And I don't think an investigative journalist is a bad idea either. ;)

12

So I'm curious what you found out about this? Did you find out whether they were drilling on your property?

13

Even I don't hear anything in the next few weeks, I'll head down to Charleston to camp out at the DEP offices until I have answers.

14

After much Googling of my parcel ID number, it appears the properties I have interest in on Snake Run Road and Sugar Camp Road. According the Skytruth site you sent me there are several wells in that general area. Not having ever been there myself, do you know if they are operating in that area of the county?

I did find several permits for Antero through the Skytruth site, which gave me well numbers and names and the farm names. I still have to cross check those on the DEP site to see if any correspond to my properties, but I'm not entirely sure where along either of those roads my properties lie. I am hoping to find names on the permits that match the adjacent property names listed in the Deed book - Underwood, Chipps, Dolly, Dukate and Crabbe. Any of those familiar to you as properties with mining activity happening?

15

I am unfamiliar with the names you mention and with Snake Run.

Part of Sugar Camp is permitted to be reached from the Powell pad, as I understand it.

There are rumors and indications of plans eventually to place a pad somewhere between Eibes Camp Run and Sugar Camp Run roads.

16

JNK,

I've been doing my homework and found the property! AND it turns out Antero DID get approved 3 weeks ago for a well that runs right through the center of the property where I have mineral and oil interests! Like you I found it on the survey map that was part of the application and permitting process.

Though I don't own all the mineral rights on that particular tract I guess because it lists the property at 29 acres and my rights are to 3.700 acres. I'm guessing they can "sidestep" over mine and go through elsewhere? Not sure how that works. Or do they need permission from ALL the rights owners on that tract, regardless of where the pipe actually runs?

Thanks,

Jenn

17

I honestly don't know the answers, Jenn. So I hope someone more experienced than I posts some.

My understanding is that every effort must be made by a company to get all known owners to sign. But then again, it is against the law to drive over the speed limit too, and we all know how that never happens. :-)

There seem to me to be three schools of thought when it comes to people in our position.

1. One school of thought is that it is time to speak to a lawyer.

2. Another school of thought is that if my interests have already been permitted for drilling without signing me, that puts me in a particular position of power for further negotiations with the company from that point forward so that I don't stop the drilling by refusing to participate in a state with no forced pooling (yet).

3. And another school of thought is that it is good if the company goes ahead and knowingly drills my interests without signing me because then I could enjoy the pleasure of suing the pants off of them for doing it.

All three options, however, assume the existence of a fully dependable and fair legal system (1) that is not influenced in the slightest by big-business and (2) that is truly interested in protecting the rights of surface and interest owners.

I remain unconvinced.

18

Agreed all 3 schools of thought! :) Guess it's time to visit my lawyer again...sigh