Marcellus Shale Driller Offers Settlement to Landowners

From WHYY

A major gas company actively drilling the lucrative Marcellus Shale deposits in Pennsylvania recently offered a settlement to hundreds of landowners. The property owners had accused the company of cheating them out of royalty payments.

If a landowner gets an offer from a gas company today, they could get $3,000 an acre plus a 20 percent royalty payment on the gas extracted from their property. Back in 2004, landowners got a lot less. A group of them sued one of the earliest drillers in the state — Texas-based Range Resources.

“There’s a total culture of arrogance associated with this.  They sort of give you the ‘well if you don’t do it we’re going to do it anyway, we have a whole building of lawyers that support us and it won’t matter what you say.’ So, that’s sort of how we got rolled over.”

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