Legal Notice regarding consolidating land parcels into 5 new 640 Acre drilling tracts in Bienville Parish

Hello All

Hoping to get some feedback about a legal notice I received this week from Hargrove, Smelley & Strickland Law firm in Shreveport. It represents a notification of a Pre-Application by Petro-Chem Operating Company (also from Shreveport) proposing to create 5 (five) consolidated 640 acre tracts in the Hosston Zone Reservoir A, Bryceland Field, Bienville Parish La.

The five new tracks are in western Bienville Parish and (if I read the map correctly) some acreage in Lincoln Parish.

It announces a call for a public hearing to consider this consolidation of all land parcels and leases within the 5 tracks for purposes of creating five additional drilling and production units for gas exploration.

The purpose of this action is stated as "To force pool and integrate all separately owned tracts, mineral leases and other property interests in accordance with Sec 10, Title 30 of La Statutes of 1950".

Questions: Did anyone get this notice, and what if any are the implications of a consolidation (Force pool and integrate) of all parcels and leases within each of these proposed 5 new tracts.

Anyone going to ask for a hearing. Our family parcels are in Lincoln Parish but one small parcel is within one of the new consolidated tracts -- which is why we received the notice. All of our past gas leases have expired.

Thank you for any feedback on this legal notice.

Sincerely

James Boyd

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The notice letters are sent to all "Interested Parties" as evidenced in the parish public records and those immediately adjacent to a distance of 1000' although they are not included in the units that Petro-Chem applies to create.  The local hearing is a waste of time unless you have a geological issue to raise and a certified geologist to defend it.  I suggest that it is not worth the time to request or attend.  The application, once approved, becomes a Field Order and allows Petro-Chem to force pool all interests within the boundary of the units.  That is leased mineral owners, unleased mineral owners and any parties with a working interest (those who hold leases but not not operate the  wells that may be drilled).  All those parties will share in the production from any and all unit wells although the regulations covering how they share are different for each.  The bottom line is that everyone within a unit will receive their prorated share of unit production regardless of the number of unit wells drilled or where in the unit they are drilled.  Peto-Chem is one of the last active independent O&G companies in our part of the world.  I suggest that your let them drill you some wells and hope those wells are productive.  Good luck.

Thanks Skip;

I appreciate your quick reply. As always your insights are always valuable.

Jim

You're welcome, J. Boyd.  I'm glad that Petro-Chem is still drilling wells and wish them luck also.

Concur with Skip that it is not worth it to try to get a public hearing unless you have some strong info to support your position. I was able to get a hearing scheduled several years ago questioning the need to have some Haynesville units near the Texas line almost 1000 acres by combining sections. It was obvious the state folks were in bed with the drilling companies and were not going to seriously consider the concerns of the land owners.

Owing to the fact that the most westerly sections in the northern 16W townships are half sections bisected by the Texas/Louisiana state line,  there are a number of Haynesville shale drilling and production units that are a section and a half in size and therefore approximately 960 acres in total.  In the early years of the play with spacing at 660' between wells, those units could have 12 well slots.  Now that the industry has moved to wider spacing the distance between wells is about 880' so a state line unit would get 9 well slots.  Any objection to those units would not have a geologic reason for the state to reject an application to form a drilling unit.

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