Lease Your Land For Oil and Gas Production
(Page 3 of 4)
January/February 1984
By Tom Bigelow
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Homesteaders seeking greater self-sufficiency might consider a common fringe benefit of drilling more desirable than the cash rewards. In the event a successful well taps into a natural gas reserve, the landowner can divert some of the gas flow into his or her home for heating and cooking purposes, so long as a clause to this effect has been written into the lease. It's easy to see how the thought of a 10- to 20-year supply of free natural gas can be a very appealing incentive to homeowners (especially with today's escalating utility costs!).
THE FLIP SIDE
Although such prospects are alluring, there are definitely several disadvantages to consider before you rush into an agreement with the first oil company you find. It's important to remember that leasing your property—whether it be 5 acres or 500—essentially means "sharing" the land . . . a situation which may or may not fit into your long-term plans for the property. True, it's hardly likely that the surrounding acreage must sit idle while a small tract is being drilled upon. Still, that land may be disrupted at any time by exploration and developmental activities.
Building an access road may be the first disturbance. The driller will use dump trucks, bulldozers, and other excavating equipment to construct a roadway to the well site . . . removing trees, topsoil, vegetation, and other ground cover in the process. The driller may then elect to haul in gravel, or may just use the existing subsoil as a roadbed.
The number of trees you'll lose will depend on your land and on the length of the access road and its proximity to the well site. The workers will either cut the trees down with a chain saw or simply uproot them with a bulldozer. The landowner, though, can claim all the cut timber from his or her property . . . provided that's been written into the contract.
Further work will be done at the well site. Preparation before drilling includes leveling the terrain so that the rig can sit flat on a cleared spot and digging a holding pit for the used drilling fluids (which include salt water and drilling muds).
Moreover, unless all this excavation is done properly, soil instability and erosion problems may result. These—if left unchecked—can create trenches and channels that accelerate the washing away of the soil's vital nutrients.
Other possible, though infrequent, complications include seepage of drilling fluids into nearby streams and water wells . . . oil spills . . . and injuries to humans and animals (either through direct contact with the equipment or by contamination of water supplies and vegetation).
Then too, once the drilling is completed, production equipment such as pumping units, storage tanks, valves, and fittings will have to be secured in place at the site for the entire life of the well. The constant noise of that pump engine sucking up the oil, and the visual incongruity of the oil-field equipment may be bothersome to both you and your neighbors.
