Marcellus Shale Mineral Rights and Royalties

Northeastern Pennsylvania development is predominantly dry gas. Southwestern Pennsylvania and adjacent areas produce gas with associated liquids in places. Northern West Virginia has extensive Marcellus development as well.

Because the play is developed with long horizontal laterals, units draw acreage from many separate tracts, and a single owner's decimal may be small even in an active area.

Pooling authority, unit modification, royalty fractions and deduction language vary by lease. Owners in the same township may be treated differently because they signed in different years.

Whether a lease remains in force, and how its terms apply, is a legal question governed by the law of the state where the minerals sit — Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio each apply their own.

Some tracts have separate arrangements for shallow and deep rights, and in parts of the region the Marcellus and the deeper Utica and Point Pleasant may be leased or developed separately.

We make no predictions about whether any formation will be drilled beneath a particular tract.