Imagine you own a 95-acre farm in Washington County, Pa. The farm has been in your family since the 1930s. Your great-grandfather signed an oil and gas lease with a local driller back in 1954. Two shallow wells were drilled in the late 1950s and have produced modest gas royalties ever since. You are quite satisfied with the minimal surface disruption caused by the two shallow wells and have no interest in hosting a large Marcellus well-pad site on your property.
Some years later, your lease is acquired by a large Texas-based driller who also has leased your neighbor’s tracts to the north and east. One morning, you receive a letter from this driller advising you that your property has been combined with the neighboring tracts and that a Marcellus well pad will be constructed on your property in the next six months. You review that 1954 lease and see no clause authorizing or permitting the driller to pool your property with adjacent tracts. Can they do this without your consent? Thanks to SB 259, the answer is now yes.
