Hey all...I am wondering what you think about the practice of 'integration'?
I saw in the news that Idaho lawmakers approved an integration measure earlier this year that allows the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to act when a minority of mineral rights holders decline to take part in developing a potentially profitable oil or gas field.
Have any of you experienced this practice before?
Should the majority really have a say in how an individual landowner chooses to use their property?
2015-01_faq-mineral-rights-integration_v0204.pdf
We're fighting against it here in WV. Basically, it's using eminent domain to force people to lease their property. If you think eminent domain should be used by the government to give private property to corporations just because it will make the corporation and some neighbors money, then you won't have a problem with it. If you think the rights of the individual property owner to control their property is more important than the rights of the corporation and the neighbors to make money, then you're against it. In most situations here in WV, it wouldn't matter too much whether the holdout's property was leased, as the company would just not drill under their property. It would reduce the profitability of the well, but it wouldn't make it unprofitable. Here in WV I don't see the need for it.
Isn't that called forced pooling in other states.
No! This is not a majority rule situation. As a landowner, you should have total control over what happens to your property. Period.
Buddy Cotten
Hi Kyle,
I had a situation in WV where a company did not have a lease with me, and planned to drill a horizontal Marcellus well along my property line (not within it), but the FRACKING was going to trespass upon my minerals. Their documented plan with the Oil and Gas division of the DEP demonstrated this (verified by an attorney). I only learned about it because they were required to notify me about the water wells testing. Fortunately, we came to an agreement on a lease. I won't say they were actually going to do that, but their filed plan stated it. Now, I have to deal with that the well has been online and they owe 13 months back royalty payments, sadly. In this age of E&Ps going bankrupt, I am very worried.