OT---correct me if I am wrong

I am 69 years old and grew up on my sisters dairy and chicken farm.
In my younger years, I can remember seeing a small pipe fence built from like 6" round pipe around a pipe with a long flame burning. This was in an open field/pasture.
I just always thought that was built by an oil company and they were burning off waste gas.
Seems like I remember being told that the farm owner sold oil rights to a company for like 100years.
Some one please correct me if I am wrong, but if I remember correctly, why is it not done today?

Why isn't what done,burning off gas or leasing?
I never heard of a 100 year lease. I just signed a new 5 year lease that past summer. They have an option for another five at the end of that,but with the crash in crude prices,I don't expect anybody will be drilling or spending money to renew the lease.

(quoted from post at 17:11:29 01/08/15) Why isn't what done,burning off gas or leasing?
I never heard of a 100 year lease. I just signed a new 5 year lease that past summer. They have an option for another five at the end of that,but with the crash in crude prices,I don't expect anybody will be drilling or spending money to renew the lease.

Click to expand...

Like I suggested---I may have dreamed this LOL. I was asking why do you not see this burning off today?
I just assumed that the company was burning off natural gas back in the day when there wasn't a great demand.
I don't remember ever seeing an oil rig pumping oil or drilling.

I guess the only time I ever saw them burning it off was where there was an existing oil well. To be honest,I don't know if they still do or if they've found a way to capture it?

here in NW ND in the Tioga oilfield, Amerada Hess used to provide natural gas to landowners/lease holders free of cost, but with osha and other govt entities newer regulations, they stopped that back in the 80's because of safety and liability concerns. Now they just flare it at the well site, but are slowly making headway with pipelines to capture and process it. I have 500 acres of mineral rights on the edge of Bakken and have not leased them in 8 years.

Dick ND

Regarding the lease terms, once a producing well is found, the lease reverts to HBP (held by production) status, and the lease is then held until the well quits producing (or sometimes quits making money). So you can have wells producing on leases that are decades old.
Regarding the flaring, it was commonly done years ago because there were no pipelines for the gas. Gas prices were very low, there were limited markets, and it just wasn't economic to do anything with the gas.
Now days, the gas is usually too valuable to waste by flaring, and most states have strong limitations on flaring. Some flaring may be allowed during the testing phase, but that's it.
There's a lot more to it, but these are the basics.

Some of those flares were used to get rid of gas with nasty compounds that come along with oil production. Stuff that made it impractical to try to capture and process it for consumer use.

Think flares were used where the gas contained nasty compounds that made it impractical or dangerous to capture itfor consumer use.

I still see them occasionally, mostly at the refineries around Houston, oil field of west Texas. Always heard the were burning off gas that wasn't good enough to sell, couldn't vent it because it was toxic/flammable.

RRLund: You're probably right that there's no such thing as a 100-year mineral lease. I can say that where there's continuous production a lease can have the effect of 100 years. I get checks every month from gas production on leases signed by my grandmother back in the mid 40s. The mineral rights were transferred to my parents when they bought the land from my grand mother, and they transferred to my brother and me when they died. Through the years additional wells have been drilled and there, but no new leases were required.

They have been flaring gas from wells here since the 1950's. Now the state has started making the oil companies save and pipe the gas. I don't know when this goes into effect but some are doing it already.

Did not see it with my own eyes but a coworker told me this. The area he was from in E. central KS they could drive a perforated pipe in ground and pipe that right in the house to run a gas stove. Again not 100% confirm-able by me.

When I was a kid in the early 1980's, a company came on the farm and drilled a gas well. They made a mess of the place that we're still contending with ~30 years later. Dad & Mom wanted them GONE, but the previous owner of the farm had signed a "99 year lease" that granted them rights to drill up to 3 wells.

I distinctly remember a lot of talk about this "99 year lease" from the "old folks" during the controversy.

Somewhere along the line the lease has expired and/or been rendered null and void.

Flares are still used today, alot depends upon the
location of the well, quality of the gas, volume
of the gas versus oil. New laws on new wells they
are only allowed to flare a certain amount of gas
and only for a certain amount of time. Otherwise
they have to build pipeline, or shut in the pipe.
There are still several old wells in central
michigan that when they are producing do have
flare stacks lit.

He was right. I am in NE kansas and my farm is one of the few in these parts that doesn't heat with natural gas from wells drilled on the farm. Only reason mine doesn't is that it was hooked into the chain with two other neighbors but the one inch pipe rusted and collapsed. It's a little dangerous as you have to know what natural gas smells like in its natural state. It is distinct. They aren't high pressure but fairly high volume. Usually they run about 30-35 pounds around here. It isn't a free ride, though. Every few years the holes get mineral deposits in them and you don't have enough pressure. You have to get someone to put an acid shot in it to clear it up. Depends on whether you have connections. It can cost you a few cases of beer or several thousand dollars.

1130LEO , our farm was right smack in the middle of a bunch of them just N/E of Rosebush. When the flare would go out that rotten gas would stink so bad it would make you heave and also turned the house brown. Dad always had to call them to light the flares. We had 10 within a mile of us and they dozed a site on our place but right at same time as bottom went out of oil back in late"70,s or early "80,s. Never did drill and Dad sold farm/rights in late "90,s. Still no drilling . 70% of those wells around there are not pumping. Ones that are you can smell on 127 when going through there.Think they even closed the gas plant along 127 for lack of volume.

Drake's first oil well is north of me. The McDonald oil field was an amazing find in 1900. One well made 6 billion dollars in oil in it's lifetime, in today's money. They diverted creeks, dammed the water and used the creek bed to transport crude.

This was in my back yard.


At that time, it was common to have a 99 year gas lease.


The 99 year gas lease has loop holes, but, for the most part, when it was instituted, was a good thing for the land owner.


It happened.

I can't go into specifics in a short reply, but it happened.

Now, 100 years later, the gas and oil in this area is so much more.


Flaring wells was a sign of large oil production. You had to burn off the gas in order to get the oil to flow. The gas compressed the oil in the well. So, even today, you have oil wells that won't produce until the gas pressure is relieved.

I'm not sure how to explain the process in short, but, oil floats on water, the water is brine. Brine makes fertilizer. The gas holds the oil and brine down. If you release the gas, the oil and brine will flow. It's a cheap source for the guy who owns the land. When the gas gets let go, you can pump the oil from the top, and then pump the brine. when you get the brine down, the pockets of oil in that formation lowers below the ceiling of the formation, and migrates towards the well. then you can pump the oil out, and as a byproduct, the gas will flow. Get he gas out, and more brine and oil flow.


I live in ground zero of a lot of early gas and oil production which is now ground zero of the modern gas production in Marcellus and Utica.

Imagine 59,000 thousand cubic feet of gas coming out of the ground in one day. That is 59 million cubic feet of gas coming out, against pipe pressure in one day. 59,000 one thousand cubic feet. 59 million cubic feet of gas. In ONE DAY. $180,000 worth of gas in 24 hours~! $5 million, 400 thousand dollars in gas in one month. 5.4 million in one month. 5 million in one month! from 1200 acres of ground... Do the math...

No one has considered the effects on the local economy. Needless to say, this area in general is rich, and land owners are on top.


It doesn't matter what happens with global warming. The gas is sold. That gas is now on the market. That is why oil prices have gone down. You do the math if you owned 200 acres in this region. That farm owner, making 18% royalties is now good for life and so is their children.


That is my contribution to the discussion.

RayP(MI):

Ray that's correct; depending on the oil field, there may be pockets of POISON GAS (heavily laden with Hydrogen Sulfide or other extremely toxic gasses) that HAVE to be flared because to release them into the atmosphere would kill everything around the well for several miles. Down in Venezuela there's an oil field where ALL of the gas is POISONOUS and has to be flared, and the oil workers have to wear special Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus in order to work around that field.


Doc

And that is only one well. Most have 8 wells on one pad. So Yeah
Lots of money.