I was just contacted by a land agent about signing a gas/oil lease for my property. Apparently they are doing a lot of natural gas speculation in the area. The company they are reps for is Aurora Energy out of Mich.Most of the tracts in the area (100 - 200 acres) that have signed on are farm ground / woods with no residence on the property. Either that or farms with enough acreage they can get out of sight of the house to drill. My little plot w/home is 35 acres with road access only from my driveway. Due to lay of the land, no good access to the backside of the property any other way. Already have a high voltage transmission line cutting across the hayfield on the backside of the property. For the princely sum of $10 they will tie up my oil/gas rights for 5 yrs with their option for another 5 years for slightly more $$. The agreement allows them to drill, put in road access, lay pipe, storage, etc. Cleanup is allowed $500 when they leave. (that should pay for a couple of hours with a dozer and a few loads of gravel or dirt!) My fear is having the mess, odor and disruption ruining the quality of life. Possibly even a well being drilled just past the 200ft distance from the house. The alternative is not sign a lease and maybe they drill on neighboring property and I still have some of the same problems with no compensation whatsoever. If I do sign and they drill down the road and not on me, I will at least get my portion of $$ from what they pull out of the ground because I would be in the "drilling unit". Obviously I can dicker for changes in the lease conditions or feel them out for what they think my property would be used for. But if my ground would not be all that good for a drill site and I start wanting to add lease conditions, why would it be to their advantage to even want me to sign on? Any thoughts or previous experiences anyone would like to share? Sorry for the long post.
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