Ritchie Co. drilling activity

I live in Texas and have a small mineral interest in Ritchie Co. Is there any drilling activity happening? Is there any shale production>

I live out of state (NC) also. You can go to this website, of the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection Office of Oil and Gas.

http://apps.dep.wv.gov/oog/permitsearch_new.cfm

and put in Ritchie, a date, and see what you find.

This site

http://apps.dep.wv.gov/oog/wellsearch_new.cfm

shows information for wells already drilled.

You can go here

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

and look through the Plats list each week, which is roughly arranged by county (Ritchie is 085).

This is another site, by the West Virginia Geological Survey, with similar information, but a little less up to date. I like the maps better than the other.

As I understand it, there are several companies drilling Marcellus wells, although there have been wells drilled to that layer for decades. Viking and EQT are two companies that are active, and I'm sure there are others.

There are also companies drilling and operating in shallower depths.

I live in Dandridge,Tn and received a phone call yesterday from a land man wanting to find all of the heirs and then lease our property in Doddridge W.VA He said that he was putting a lease in the mail to me yesterday.

Lynn Taylor



linda diane taylor said:

I live in Dandridge,Tn and received a phone call yesterday from a land man wanting to find all of the heirs and then lease our property in Doddridge W.VA He said that he was putting a lease in the mail to me yesterday.

Lynn Taylor

I am not prying, but can you give me an approximate figure per acer, of lease prices and % of production. If you are not comfortable giving me this info, I understand. We have 450 acers leased in Ritchie County and are not sure what to do with the lease. It is almost 100 years old and still being used. Maybe between two figures would be easier, just something to be a guide. No idea on this end.

Carl Nay



Carl Nay said:

I am not prying, but can you give me an approximate figure per acer, of lease prices and % of production. If you are not comfortable giving me this info, I understand. We have 450 acers leased in Ritchie County and are not sure what to do with the lease. It is almost 100 years old and still being used. Maybe between two figures would be easier, just something to be a guide. No idea on this end.

Carl Nay

Hi Carl,

What district? And how many wells? Are you getting any payment? The amount paid is based on the volume and the price. Older wells don't usually produce much but new wells do. With that acreage you could have several well. Is this one large tract or some smaller ones? I know that is not an answer to your question but like many things "it depends" is the answer.

Carl Nay said:

I am not prying, but can you give me an approximate figure per acer, of lease prices and % of production. If you are not comfortable giving me this info, I understand. We have 450 acers leased in Ritchie County and are not sure what to do with the lease. It is almost 100 years old and still being used. Maybe between two figures would be easier, just something to be a guide. No idea on this end.

Carl Nay

One farm of 450 connected acres, Union district, about 10 miles from 8-10 or more deep wells being drilled on White Oak area. We have some of the old shallow wells producing, no deep wells, or any contact. However I wonder if the oil men know who to contact as no owner lives very close. I am the closest and 275 miles away.

Think that answers all. Correct new wells usely produce more for a little while then settle down and can have lower production for extended time. Oldest is about 80 years old. Of course they need cleaned out once in a while. Just looking for an extimate not exact figures.

Carl Nay said:



Carl Nay said:

I am not prying, but can you give me an approximate figure per acer, of lease prices and % of production. If you are not comfortable giving me this info, I understand. We have 450 acers leased in Ritchie County and are not sure what to do with the lease. It is almost 100 years old and still being used. Maybe between two figures would be easier, just something to be a guide. No idea on this end.

Carl Nay

A good old well might produce $100 - 300 a month at today's prices, maybe more. Or maybe just $5 or $10. A newer one of course would do much better. I think there is a lot going on in parts of Union District since the northern part is in the wet gas area (I think) and near the new pipeline (I think).

The guesses I gave are for the full OGM at 12.5% royalty which was standard in Ritchie County until very recently.

Do you have API numbers for the wells? If so you could get the production information here

https://apps.dep.wv.gov/oog/wellsearch_new.cfm

selecting Ritchie as county and 085 as API prefix. You should be able to get API numbers from the assessor's office in Ritchie County. This will be somewhat old, should be 2012 production and older but some operators are late getting the production reports in and 2011 is the latest.

I have had to learn a lot about how these things work and am happy to share ideas, and always am looking for new ways of doing things. The more information you have the better decisions you can make when you need to.

There is quite a bit of drilling and new pipelines being installed in area I visited.

One new compressor station I know of. Other activity that can not be seen as it is on private roads and out of sight.

It's January 2014 and what is going on in Ritchie County? It has been months since any posting for Ritchie County. Any leasing figures, any contact, any drilling or ???

I know that there are a fairly large number of permits in the eastern Clay district and some in Union, near Doddridge.

I have heard of offers from $1500 to $1800 an acre in this general area.

Go here http://www.dep.wv.gov/oil-and-gas/Pages/default.aspx and look around. Under the General information you can go to Weekly Reports and see Permits, cancelled permits, well records, plugging. Of course the new permits are the most interesting.

If you go to Database and Map Information, then select Oil and Gas Map Search, select Ritchie and some recent dates, and zoom in and find the red colored area and the blue dots there, those red stars are the pads for horizontal wells and the orange lines are the horizontal legs.

EQT and Antero seem to be the most active.

If you go back to the database and on the left side find Horizontal Drilling and go to that page, in the middle of the page you see Signup for OOG Mailing List and View the List archives

You can get on the mailing list and get emails when they have new permits issued. The link will get you to that map page we found earlier and you put in the API number listed in the email. Often these come in the late afternoon, and when you put the API number in, it says nothing matches. Wait til the next day and it usually shows up.

Hi Nancy, Thanks for chiming in. I thought the Ritchie site had dried up. Not much talk at all. Antero called us the other day and left a call back number. We had not heard from them since last March when they offered 1700./15%. We have some rights in Union off Rt.74. There are a lot of mineral owners in that area that they can't find to talk to. When we talked to the land agents last year they said that the search for some owners was only current to 1940. What a mess trying to get in touch with those who have mineral acreage in that area. There are so many small tracts that it would be a tough job to find all those involved. A lot of searches end up dead ends and no further names to check. When we were first contacted, those guys had names of relatives that had been deceased for 35 to 40 years. The agents were totally lost in the search process. My only regret was to give them any info. They are not what I would call trust worthy. I still believe they will get their way and get a forced pooling bill in the near future. If they do we may have another Civil War to deal with up in some of those hollows. Whoaa! I am a firm believer that these oil/gas companies are shafting the Wv. people. The figures they are giving are a lot less than other areas for the same product. I guess they think the good ol' folks in Wv. are not up on the times. Guess again. We are learning more and more each day about this mineral rights stuff.

DT, I hope you are wrong about forced pooling but I expect that will be a big push this year. I can understand their frustration in wanting to drill but getting stuck with finding the owners. Perhaps the WV law should be strengthened to require timely administration of estates. However I have seen instances of other mineral owners in my own fractional interest holdings where the assessor's office incorrectly recorded a transfer, and there was a "missing" fractional interest that probably even the grantor who retained the interest forgot about it and his present day heirs had no idea that they should have been on the tax rolls. Etc.

I have heard that when they first started, a few years ago, in Ritchie county that EQT and Antero both did a lot of sloppy title work, but I think they are both getting better at it.

We (sister and I) have been contacted by both of those companies about a tract in Clay district. I am trying to get the best lease terms possible and haven't firmed up $ amounts but I think they are having more and more reason to believe that at least that northeastern part of Ritchie is in the good area.

And you are so right about how much we are all learning about this.

I just got the latest edition of the Ritchie Gazette (weekly paper) and it had several notices of horizontal drilling "Public Notice of Application for Natural Gas Horizontal Drilling Permit" by Antero, 4 north of Hwy 50, on a line drawn between Ellenboro and Pennsboro, about half way between Hwy 50 (new) and the Tyler/Pleasants/Ritchie border. Several legs to be permitted in that area. Also 2 over near White Oak in Union District.

Also some talk about a request to drain 10 feet of water from a lake near Pennsboro for the fracking process, and why that would be bad for recreational users of the lake.

Address is Ritchie Gazette & The Cairo Standard, 200 E. Main St. (P.O. Box 215) Harrisville WV 26362-0215

Of course there is a lot of local news and some statewide news, and a column of news from 40 years ago. But if you want to keep up with future drilling, get it here first!

All West Virginia mineral owners should go to this site and contact the legislature members concerning the two HB bills listed and tell them NO

http://www.wvroa.com/