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.