# natural gas well



## RoadRash (Sep 29, 2010)

Well I learned something new yesterday, a good family friend has 200 acres an is all set for SHTF if anything happens we can pool resources as my BOL is a 2 hour walk. He has his own natutral gas well that they will use in the event of a disaster. He keeps house at 74 in winter and has only had to use propane to heat in a really bad winter. 
My next BOL I will be looking for this?


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

Do you really mean your friend has a commercial natural gas well - or a natural gas pipeline - on his property and he is able to legally tap the line?


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

I live on a farm in SW Pennsylvania. We've had shallow gas wells here for years and now they are moving in to start drilling into the Marcellus and Utica shale layers to exctact gas from a mile under the ground. One of the perks of having a shallow well is you get so much free gas per year from your well. We don't have one but several neighbors do and I think (not sure though) that they ger around 200,000 cubic feet per year. This is not done with the deep wells because the gas has to be processed before use. Our farm is in the running to get a Marcellus well in the next few years but nothing is signed yet.

But for the sake of the OP, it's definately common pratice for the landowner to legally be tapped in and recieve a good amount of gas from the well on their property at no charge.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

What threw me off was RR saying his buddy had his own natural gas well. I'm sure he meant his buddy just taps into a line coming off the gas well that was commercially drilled on the property.

Yes, it is a common practice to tap into a gas line from a well on your property - if you stipulate it in the surface agreement. It's not a given and if you don't ask for it you just might not get it.

I'm assuming Pennsylvania has something similar to an agriculture extension office. Our extension office (Texas) brought in a lawyer specializing in oil and gas mineral and surface rights (from A&M) when the landmen landed full force in our county. The A&M attorney's name is Judon Fambrough and I believe he teaches several of the law courses at A&M. You might want to read some of his articles before you commit to anything. One such article is http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/229.pdf There are links to some of his other articles at the end of that pdf.


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## RoadRash (Sep 29, 2010)

I will be heading out there next week and ask ...interesting I will find out more...


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## GrinnanBarrett (Aug 31, 2012)

I have four natural gas wells on my farm and I have never tried to tap them. One thing you have to remember is the odor you get in natural gas at home is added to it. Out of the ground natural gas has no odor to it. Leaks can be a problem if you handle it incorrectly. ALso when you do work on the well be sure to use only brass tools. Steel tools can spark and that is not a good thing. GB


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

GrinnanBarrett said:


> I have four natural gas wells on my farm and I have never tried to tap them. One thing you have to remember is the odor you get in natural gas at home is added to it. Out of the ground natural gas has no odor to it. Leaks can be a problem if you handle it incorrectly. ALso when you do work on the well be sure to use only brass tools. Steel tools can spark and that is not a good thing. GB


In Texas they have to add the odorant right when the gas comes out of the ground. That change came about right after the New London School explosion in 1937. http://www.newlondonschool.org/ Here's another link: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/yqn01

A generation was lost with this disaster.


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## kejmack (May 17, 2011)

When you have a piece of property, there are Surface Rights, Water Rights, and Mineral Rights. You can only use the natural gas if you *own* the Mineral Rights. Otherwise, you are stealing from someone. You have to be careful in Texas because the owner of the Mineral Rights might show up one day to put a pump jack in your front yard.


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## horseman09 (Mar 2, 2010)

Jason said:


> I live on a farm in SW Pennsylvania. We've had shallow gas wells here for years and now they are moving in to start drilling into the Marcellus and Utica shale layers to exctact gas from a mile under the ground. One of the perks of having a shallow well is you get so much free gas per year from your well. We don't have one but several neighbors do and I think (not sure though) that they ger around 200,000 cubic feet per year. This is not done with the deep wells because the gas has to be processed before use. Our farm is in the running to get a Marcellus well in the next few years but nothing is signed yet.
> 
> But for the sake of the OP, it's definately common pratice for the landowner to legally be tapped in and recieve a good amount of gas from the well on their property at no charge.


Jason, the Marcellus gas quality varies geographically. Here in NEPA, many wells require very little processing.

When we negotiated our landowners group gas lease (almost 4000 acres) in 2008, I researched the free gas possiblity. Not practical for the Marcellus Play because the pressures are far higher than the Barnett Play of Texas/Oklahoma and elsewhere. The equipment required to reduce the pressure is too expensive. IMHO, it is better to negotiate an annual lump sum for a well on your property instead of free gas.

There is a saying about gas landmen: "How do you know if a landman is lying? His lips are moving."

We spent mucho hours researching our lease possibilites and then ran it past a gas lawyer for cleanup. We wound up with a darned good contract. Soooo much to learn if you are not already a gas guy.

If they knock on your door, feel free to let me know. I'll send you a copy of our lease with attached addenda and some additional suggestions.

Also.........beware the pipeline ROW guys! In our experience, those guys would look St. Peter square in the eye and lie to him.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

horseman09 said:


> Also.........beware the pipeline ROW guys! In our experience, those guys would look St. Peter square in the eye and lie to him.


Evil incarnate. They lie about everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

In Texas, mineral rights are separate from surface rights. The pipeline ROW guy tried to bully me into letting them have an easement across our hay meadow because it was just too expensive for them to cut an easement through the timber across the way. The lies that came out of his mouth would make your hair curl. And, oh... he was so smooth - looked me right in the eye the entire time.

I just smiled when I told him no. Had they had the mineral rights to our property we would not have had any choice. They didn't and we did.

I would rather have the drillers instead of the ROW pipeline folks.


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## Well_Driller (Jun 3, 2012)

It's not uncommon in my area to see privately owned gas & oil wells around here. All of them were drilled some years ago and at some point were sold back to the land owners who get gas from them. There are two close to me that are privately owned. They don't however come without maintenance. It's your well, maintenance and pumping is up to you, and it can be expensive. The brine has to be hauled away. One well still has the pump on it. Makes a little oil, but they only pump it to keep the brine off so the gas comes up. The other has no pump. Have to bring a rig in and swab it when gas production tapers way off. I've never run into any gas here drilling water wells, but there are a few places here where a usable amount of gas can be found as shallow as 200ft. Just have to keep the water pumped off. I've been considering doing some exploratory drilling here down to 600ft or so looking for enough gas to heat with.


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## Well_Driller (Jun 3, 2012)

GrinnanBarrett said:


> I have four natural gas wells on my farm and I have never tried to tap them. One thing you have to remember is the odor you get in natural gas at home is added to it. Out of the ground natural gas has no odor to it. Leaks can be a problem if you handle it incorrectly. ALso when you do work on the well be sure to use only brass tools. Steel tools can spark and that is not a good thing. GB


I think whether or not the gas has an odor coming out of the ground may vary with the formations and the locations. Since i've never drilled outside of OH I don't know about other states, but when I was helping a friend drill a few shallow gas wells with a cable rig, we could smell the gas coming up once we starting getting into the formation, and that was even before the well was shot. I've also been around other deeper wells and drilling in my area and I could easily smell the gas coming right off the well head on all of them, but the gas that is piped from the wells goes through several processes when it's sold commercially to remove the propane and other impurities, and it may very well have to have the odor injected as those processes may remove it's natural odor as well.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

I was in the Heating & Cooling business for thirty years.about fifteen years ago we had a number of oil wells drilled in this area. A bi-product of the drilling was natural gas. Many landowners were excited about the prospect of free natural gas and we were swamped with calls from them regarding us puting in gas furnaces for them to utilize their free natural gas.

This was the problem . 

1. The natural gas they had was not clean and the pressure was eratic.
In order for a modern gas appliance to operate on natural gas, it has to be cleaned of all other impuritys ,(such as sulfer and water) and it must be delivered at a constant regulated pressure. Natural gas wells straight off an oil well huff and puff. If they huff too much, the pressure will drop below the recomended pressure and if they puff too much, they will blow the high pressure pop off in the equipment regulator. It is an expencive process toclean pressureize and deliver it at the propper pressure.

2. Is a legal problem. When you buy an appliance , furnace , or any other peice of equipment that uses natural gas or propane, it has a manufactures warranty that contains a product liability clause. It basicly says that as long as the product is used in accordance with the Mfg. recomendations, the Mfg. will be liable for damages caused by the product. all gas appliances have a phrase that says it must be attached to a "regulated Source of natural gas or propane". Regulated source does not mean it has a mechanical regulator to reduce the pressure. It means the gas must be supplyed by a utility that is regulated by a government agency.
In short if your house burns down, the homeowners insurance will not pay !

I don't want to rain on any parades here but you should know what you are getting into.

If I was going to heat a dwelling with natural gas off a well, I would build an old time gas furnace with cast iron burners and a brick heat exchanger with an open flue. It would burn a treffic amount of gas but who would care if it was free. It would have a 50% effeciancy and no one would insure the house but if it was a EOTWAWKI dwelling , I likely would not find an insurer anyhow .


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## Well_Driller (Jun 3, 2012)

Problems with pressures, water getting into appliances etc. all goes back to well maintenance. All the people I know that heat with gas from their wells have never had a problem. Properly installed regulating equipment and separators are key. If you don't know what you're doing then probably best to leave it alone. I do know of a few people who have had those problems bringing an abandoned well back on line, but it was because a lot of those wells were stripped down to basically just the pump, some just a casing capped off, and they didn't have the right equipment installed. Also, propane is regulated by mechanical regulators off the tank, but of course tank pressure is predictable depending on temperature and that equipment is usually installed in accordance with NFPA regulations. With most of the wells here they have to be pumped to keep gas pressure up, so we really don't have to worry about high pressure.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

Horseman, we have a law firm with a lot of experience looking into our Marcellus situation. They have helped some of our neighbors in the past and the neighbors did really well. We have banded together with a few dozen landowners in our township to hire this law firm. We're not going into this blindly and of course we are open to any suggestions. The 2 landmen we talked to were not impressive. They were both less than 30 years old, I'd guess, and you could tell they were just spouting off corporate BS answers. I don't claim to be especially quick witted and I was able to come up with a few questions off the top of my head that they could not answer. Now it's our lawyers communicating with the gas company and I haven't heard anything for a while. 

All the affected landowners own their mineral rights and this has been researched and documented by the law firm. We'll get royalties once the wells are up and running and damages for disturbed farmland. There's more to it than that but for $300/hour our lawyer is being very meticulous and so far is doing a good job covering all the bases, like lost spring water, returning land to pre drilling conditions, etc.


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

kejmack said:


> When you have a piece of property, there are Surface Rights, Water Rights, and Mineral Rights. You can only use the natural gas if you *own* the Mineral Rights. Otherwise, you are stealing from someone. You have to be careful in Texas because the owner of the Mineral Rights might show up one day to put a pump jack in your front yard.


Which it is critical to have all rights included in your assessment and purchase contract. Around here timber rights are one that is a biggie.


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