Oil & Gas Exploration Outfits Scrambling For Landowners' Mineral Rights A Modern Day 'Gold Rush' As 100s Flood Land Recorders' Offices

In Guernsey County, Ohio, the Zanesville Times Recorder reports:

• It's standing-room only in the Guernsey County Recorder's Office. Hundreds of people have flooded the office for several months, researching land deeds and leases all the way back to 1803 to make sure mineral rights are clear for Utica shale leasing,(1) said Guernsey County Recorder Colleen Wheatley.



• The rush got so bad that as of Nov. 1, the recorder's office expanded its hours. Normally open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., the office is open until midnight Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.



• "There's just so many people, the demand for the space and the records, you have to see it to believe it," Wheatley said. "It's just a different feel, almost like the gold rush."



• In the past, the recorder's office would see maybe a dozen people per day, usually looking up foreclosure or bankruptcy information, Wheatley said. Now, the office sees about 150 title researchers each day, she said.



• Muskingum County Recorder Karen Vincent visited Guernsey County this week to check out the buzz. Her office sees a few local landowners doing title research each day, but the office keeps all of its deed and lease information online, Vincent said. She thinks the Muskingum recorder's office will see some increase in the coming months, but she doesn't know whether it will hit the level Guernsey has, she said.



• Title researcher Lori Ross, from Pennsylvania, spent Tuesday afternoon -- and Tuesday morning and most likely Tuesday evening -- in the Guernsey recorder's office, poring over records. Ross is a crew leader for Brighton Resources, based in Pittsburgh.



• Ross and her crew essentially are subcontractors for oil and gas companies, she said. When a company wants to lease the rights to a plot of land, it's her job to go back through the title to make sure the mineral rights aren't already leased to someone else.



• Ross got to Guernsey about a month ago, she said. She could be there another six months or a year, or she could get a call tomorrow, telling her she's moving to a different project, she said.



• It's the same for Hugh Carroll, a crew leader from Virginia. Carroll has been in Guernsey County about a month and a half, he said, but he's been doing the same type of research work for five years, in 60 different counties in five different states: Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky.



• Carroll and his crew start work about 8 a.m., he said, and work until 8 p.m. or later. A separate group works at night, he said. Overnight, Carroll tries to stay at the Hampton Inn in Cambridge, he said, although sometimes it's full of other title researches.



• Ross, Carroll and their crews are working long hours, but both said the recorder's office and the entire Guernsey community have been accommodating. It's not always that way, they said, but it makes it a lot easier to get their job done.



• Karie McCauley, a part-time employee in the recorder's office, grew up in Guernsey County, and she never has seen the community as excited as it is about the coming gas boom, she said. McCauley is excited because she just got her first bonus check: On Oct. 24 and 25th, McCauley signed over the mineral rights to about 10 acres in Cumberland, she said. She signed as part of a landowner group, nabbing a $5,000 per acre bonus plus 18 percent royalty payments.



• It isn't just landowners who are excited about Utica, McCauley said -- everyone, including owners of stores, restaurants and other businesses, wants in. "The energy is just so exciting," she said. "There's never a dull moment. I always have something to do."

Source: Mineral rights title researchers flock to recorder's office.

(1) The Utica Shale is a rock unit that is believed to be developing into another incredible source of natural gas. It underlies portions of Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. It is also present beneath parts of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and part of Ontario, Canada, and is located a few thousand feet below the Marcellus Shale.

For more on the Utica Shale, see Utica Shale - The Natural Gas Giant Below the Marcellus? (Stacked plays in the Appalachian Basin produce multiple natural gas pay zones).

See, generally, Bloomberg News: U.S. Shale Bubble Inflates After Near-Record Prices for Untested Fields:

• Chinese, French and Japanese energy explorers committed more than $8 billion in the past two weeks to shale-rock formations from Pennsylvania to Texas after 2011 set records for international average crude prices and U.S. gas demand. As competition among buyers intensifies, overseas investors are paying top dollar for fields where too few wells have been drilled to assess potential production, said Sven Del Pozzo, a senior equity analyst at IHS Inc.

For ways how landowners can get screwed over by entering into these leases with drilling outfits, see:

• The New York Times: Learning Too Late of the Perils in Gas Well Leases (go here for links to the "Drilling Down" articles, a series of other New York Times articles examining the risks of natural-gas drilling and efforts to regulate this rapidly growing industry),
• NY AG Warns Consumers On Entering Natural Gas Exploration Leases,
• Lawsuits: National Natural Gas Company Behind Effort That Bilked 92-Year Old Widow & Many Other Northern Michigan Landowners On Drilling Leases.