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By Patrick SweetStaff Writer

NOXEN Chief Oil andGas may begin constructionona naturalgaswell justa fewmiles north of the borderbetween Luzerne and Wyo-ming counties as soon as thesecondweek of July.

Off Route 29 in Noxen,short stakes mark the future

location of the drilling padon Robert Longmores 97-acre farm. The state Depart-ment of Environmental Pro-tection is cur rently review-ing the Texas-based gascompanys permit to placeand operate a well it filedMay 11.

The farm is near proper-ties that arepart of theNox-en Area Gas Group, a bodyof roughly 150 families with

a combined8,500acreswhichis in themidstof negotiatinga lease with Houston, Texas-based Carrizo Oil andGas.

Just down the road fromLongmore,Noxengroup orga-nizer Joel Field verified thatthe groupis inthe finalstagesof negotiation with Carrizo.Fieldand co-organizer HarryTraver declined further com-ment dueto thesensitivity ofthe negotiations.

Until things are settleddown, theyd rather not giveany statements,Harry Trav-ers wife, Dawn Traver, saidMonday.

Longmore, 56, has ownedthefarm since 1998 andsigneda lease with Chief roughlyfour and a half years ago. Thelandmen who approachedLongmore about the deal, hesaid, made the three-pagelease giving his family $25per

acre with the minimum 12.5percent royalty sound like agooddeal.

We were kind of takenadvantage of four and a halfyears ago,Longmore said. Iknow people getting $6,000anacre.

The lease had almost noprovisions protecting Long-moresfarm. At the time, thelandmen made it seemunlike-ly that drilling would ever

commence during the terms

of hislease, whichendsMay15,2011.

Chief Oil and Gas mediacontactBen McCueattemptedto reachoperationsemployeesfor comment Monday after-noon but they were unavail-able bypresstime.

Since Longmore signed,though,he saidhis experience

with the company has beenmuchmorepositive.

Earlier thisyear, the Long-moreswere giventhe opportu-nityto amend thelease.

They proposed someamendments to the lease,Longmore said, so we coun-tered with some amendmentswith some environmentalstuff.

Chief offeredto reopenthetermsof the lease in order toadd protections for the com-pany in anticipation of aPennsylvania SupremeCourtdecisionthat couldhave inval-idatedthousandsof gas leaseswhere gas companies werededucting production costsfrom the state minimum roy-alty.

The opinion on the casewas an interpretation of thePennsylvanias MinimumRoyalty Act which establishesthe 12.5 percent royalty

requirement forall oilor natu-ral gasrecovered from a wellbut doesnt stipulate when tocalculate the royalty.

The court ultimately decid-

ed in favor of the gascompa-nies roughly a week after theLongmores and Chief final-izedthe revisedlease.

The Longmores addedamendments that protectedground and surface water,along with the 0.25-milestretch of Bowmans Creekthat runs through theproper-ty.

Longmores son, JoshLongmore, manages the

Luzerne County Conserva-tion District and helped hisfather amend thelease.

Un f o rt u n a t e l y, t h e ysigned a very basic lease thatdidnt have some of the pro-tections thatthe newerleaseshave, Josh Longmore said.Our biggest goal, our big-gesthope is that thepropertymaintains its naturalbeauty,its agriculturalpurpose.

The younger Longmore

doesnthave any stake in his

parents farm, but felt that it

was necessary to help. He

a n d h is f a t h e r co m b e d

through leases that they

found online and pulled out

the clauses that fit theirneeds.

There was like three or

four different categories of

amendments, Longmore

said.

Chief accepted 90 percent

of their roughly 20 amend-

ments, Longmore said.

Thecompany diddrawthe

line on an amendment that

would have prohibited the

companyfrom disposing cut-

tings the rock equivalenttosawdust onthe pad.The

company arguedit wouldbe

cost-prohibitive to haulit off-

site, Longmore said.

I really got the impres-

sionthat theywerent hiding

anything from us, Long-

more said. They were will-

ing to answer every question

we had.

psweet@citizensvoice.com 570-821-2112

MARK MORAN / THE CITIZENS VOICE

Robert Longmore stands next to a stake on his 97-acre farm in Noxen. The stake is a place marker for where Chief Oil and Gaswill begin drilling into the Marcellus Shale next month.

Gas drilling in Noxen may start next month97-acre farmamong properties

with leases

Searchnatural gas leases in Luzerne Countyin ourNatural GasLeasesdatabaseat www.citizensvoice.com/drilling.

citizensvoice

By Genaro C. ArmasAssociated Press Writer

STATE COLLEGE APe n n S t a t e s t u d y t h a tpaints a rosy forecast onthe economic potential of

natural gas drilling hasbeen greeted with skepti-cism from a citizensgroupanda thinktankthatfavorsa severance tax largelybecause the research wasfunded by an industrygroup.

The Marcellus ShaleCoalition will pay morethan $50,000 for the studyreleased last month co-a u th o r ed i n p a r t b y

researchers at Penn StatesCollege of Earth and Min-eral Sciences, the universi-ty said.

The industry group, in arelease on its website, hasboasted that among keyfindings are that safe andsteady development ofclean-burning natural gasin Pennsylvania had thepotential to create 212,000new jobs over the next

decade, along with thou-sands already created.

The study also said gasdrilling-related activitiescould create more than$1.8 billion in state andlocal tax revenues over the

next 18 months. Skepticsare wary of results, espe-cially at a time when law-makers are weighing themerits of installing a sev-erance tax on natural gasextracted from the richre s erv e t h a t l ie s d e e punderneath most of Penn-sylvania.

The studywas an updateof a report last summerfrom the same researchers,

and the Marcellus ShaleCoalition paid more than$43,000 for that work.

What they are doing isdistorting the discussion inPennsylvania, Jon Bogle,a member of the Responsi-ble Drilling Alliance, saidin a p h o n e in t e rv ie w,because theyve been ableto use Penn State as anauthority in what theysay.

PSU study questioned over industry tie

THE

CITIZENSVO

ICE

TUESDAY,JUNE15,2010

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