20
Gas & Oil
April 2013 Edition - Dix Communications
www.OhioGO.com
Adjacent lands may be drilled without consent
A
fter several months of trying to set up a face-to-face meeting with state representatives in regards to questions about Ohio Revised Code 1509.022, Kathi Albertson of Guernsey County finally succeeded in a electronic person-to-person meeting via Skype, between attendees at a meeting at the Cambridge campus of Zane State College and State Reps. David Hall and Andy Thompson at the Statehouse in Columbus. Joining Albertson and several local residents and Farm Bureau members were Dale Arnold, director of energy policy at the Ohio Farm Bureau, and State Rep. Brian Hill. The point of contention by Albertson is ORC Section 1509.022 , which refers to the location of wells using directional drilling — more commonly referred to as horizontal drilling — and states, “Except as provided in 1509.021 of the Revised Code, the surface location of a new well that will be drilled using directional drilling, may be located on a parcel of land not in the drilling unit of the well.” Albertson said she did not understand an email sent to her from Thompson on behalf of Hall’s explanation as to how this could be beneficial to land owners who own property adjacent to state parks or the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District. Albertson noted that with her original lease with Enverest the assumed intent was that any well drilled [on her property] would be
Judie Perkowski Dix Communications
vertical and would then include that parcel of land in the drilling unit. In other words, Albertson said she knows she is bound by the old lease, but takes exception to the state adding ORC 1509.022 which allows for a well to be drilled on land using horizontal drilling that would extend beyond her property and keep her from getting royalties. “This issue extends beyond my land and is a potential problem for anyone with land adjacent to state parks or the MWCD,” said Albertson. “In both instances the plan is to extract gas and/or oil from those lands by setting the drilling pads on adjacent properties.” Hall’s explanation was that the “intent of ORC 1509.022 was to form a partnership with drilling companies and land owners. The rule could facilitate unitization of private property with state park lands.” Unitization is when a gas and oil producer combines several producing leases over a pool of gas and/or oil that would otherwise be unrecoverable. Everyone in the unitized field will share in the production based on their acreage in the unit. Hall also said the issue is more complex that had previously been believed. And, it is not clear whether or not the state owns all the mineral rights under state park lands. Dale Arnold pointed out that 80 percent of the gas/oil leases in Ohio were older leases. Additionally, leases are binding contracts
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