mbradwell@observer-reporter.com
A Greensburg company has launched an online service to help landowners negotiate the best lease with gas companies, with the opportunity to receive multiple bids.
Resource Trading Online launched the service, www.resourcetradingonline.com, to give landowners and resource owners an advantage by creating a location that gets them multiple proposals easily.
Pete Dochinez, president of Resource Trading Online, said in a press release that the site was created "because we were motivated by stories from landowners and resource owners about the less-than-adequate values they ultimately received for the lease of the natural gas resources from their property."
He estimated Friday that there are thousands of landowners and resource owners in the region who may be approached by companies seeking to lease a portion of their holdings for gas exploration.
"Landsmen, other individuals or organizations attempt to profit by securing a lease for the right to extract natural resources from certain parcels of land. Not all offer undervalued natural gas leases, but there are plenty who have taken advantage of unsuspecting land or resource owners," Dochinez said.
Dochinez, 48, an investment adviser who owns a broker/dealer firm and has invested in oil and gas issues for his own portfolio, said Friday he got the idea for the online service after an elderly client showed him a gas lease she had signed.
"They had raked her over the coals," he said, adding that after meeting with an attorney it was determined that there was no way for her to get out of the agreement.
While the Web site was launched only a week ago, Dochinez said response so far has been tremendous.
According to Dochinez, there are two types of leases, one in which a landowner receives payments for allowing a driller to put a well on the property, and another that states the royalty the landowner or resource holder will receive for gas pumped from the site.
Over the years, however, the leases have become more complex, because of the various strata of gas formations in a particular piece of land, Dochinez said, noting that someone who has leased gas that was found 1,000 feet below "may not know that more gas could be found another 3,000 feet below that."
Dochinez said that in earlier times gas leases were pretty much straightforward, with royalties based on a standard percentage and often an agreement for the driller to provide the landowner with free gas.
Leasing activity has skyrocketed in the region over the past two years as several gas-drilling companies have stepped up operations because of the potential gas reserves held in the Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches across parts of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland.
Locally, several drilling companies, including Texas-based Range Resources LLC and Moon-Township-based Atlas Energy Resources, are actively drilling and seeking additional leases to recover gas from shale. Range Resources' Appalachian operations are headquartered in Southpointe, Cecil Township. CNX Gas, headquartered in Robinson Township, is drilling to recover methane gas left behind by the coal-mining operations of Consol Energy Inc.
Dochinez said his company expects that the online service will significantly help both landowners and those who may have sold property but retained gas rights to level the playing field, since it will enable them to receive multiple bids for their holdings.
According to a press release, landowners can use the Web site to learn more about the natural resources leasing process and can register their property online, which notifies multiple producers and landsmen that property has been posted.
As those producers are notified, land and resource owners may receive multiple lease proposals from bidders, from which they negotiate terms for land use. According to the company, if the landowner does not like an offer, he can reject it or counter the bid via the online service. If the terms are acceptable, landowners are then urged to seek legal counsel.
According to Dochinez, the bidders agree to pay the online service a fee for any lease agreements they make from the online listing.
For more information, access www.resourcetradingonline.com, or call Resource Trading Online at 1-800-RTO-2040.