Gas Industry, Surface Owners Back 'Forced Pooling'
Charleston Gazette
7 October 2010
By The Associated Press
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - A public-interest attorney says West Virginia
needs a law that forces gas companies to compensate mineral-right
owners if they drain an unleased reserve through horizontal drilling.
Current law lets companies tapping the Marcellus shale field sink a
well on one property, then drill sideways into another without leasing
the mineral rights.
Dave McMahon of the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization
says lawmakers should adopt "forced pooling" legislation instead.
That would force holdout landowners to give up their gas, he said
Thursday, but require compensation.
Now, McMahon says, companies circumvent the holdout owners, take the
gas and pay them nothing.
The West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association also supports forced
pooling.