The meeting was in the fire hall on the first floor. Basically, everybody decided that if they are working with a specific company they would share information with neighbors who are working with the same company. I learned that Noble who told us "they would be our best neighbors" are just bonding onto people without even sending them a proposal or even an initial contact. If you do call them to ask what is going on then they start working with you. I saw a copy of their surface agreement and it is not bad. Better than the two pager Marathon sent to us to start with. I think we are getting pretty close to signing with Marathon. They have a confidentiality agreement and stuff that I don't like, but our lawyer (who has extensive experience working with confidentiality agreements) said it is so vague it isn't worth the paper it is written on. I am pushing for water testing at their expense, first right of refusal to sell them water and a way to certify that their abandoned pipelines have been purged of residue and are clean. I think they will probably go for it. The other stuff we worked on I am not worried about.
Devon is really making the other companies look bad. Their surface agreements are heads and shoulders above all of the other companies in the area. They are paying for road repairs, donated a large sum to most of the fire departments in the county and said they may donate some of their used pickups in the future. Just really being upstanding. They have 26 wells staked in their project and they are bringing in a flex rig to get started.
Marathon is going to drill nine wells in the area. Between us and our immediate neighbors we control eight of them. We haven't figured out who the ninth one will be on. Nobody at the meeting knew. They said they will start with two monitoring wells and one horizontal initially.
Chesapeake is really coming around on their surface agreements. Actually, I think they are getting pretty close to the terms Devon is using. Too bad we drew Marathon. Their terms seem to be the worst out of the companies in the area.
I have heard that Anadarko is excellent to work with on the surface agreements though they are not present in this area.
Basically, that is it in a nut shell. I think the next meeting is the second Tuesday in August.
SSN Price at posting:
13.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
