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s Chamber of Commerce events go, the energy conference held in Richmond by the Virginia group on Dec. 10 seems typical enough. A slew of energy company executive boosted their endeavors and their products, noting that the state will need coal, nuclear, wind, and natural gas.
For the coal officials, there was no mention of mountain top removal which lops off entire mountaintops like a bottle cap forever changing the watershed and aesthetics of coal country. There was the usual griping about possible cap and trade legislation and regulations and regulators in general.
Which is a curious point when one reads the Bristol Herald Courier in a Virginia city so far west it is half in Tennessee. The newspaper ran an eight-day series raising questions about how royalties from natural gas deposits are collected and distributed.
Some time ago, the General Assembly enacted laws that required “forced pooling” which means that others can tap the gas deposits underneath your property. You can’t give your consent — it’s not your call. But, you are supposed to get funds from an escrow fund into which the gas tappers are supposed to put a certain amount of money to pay you back. That way, you see, it’s not outright theft.
The newspaper found that some natural gas companies such as EQT and CNX Gas, a unit of coal giant Consol Energy, don’t always make such payments. The issue gets more complex because some property owners have deeded over rights to coal, but not the methane that is typically found underground nearby the coal. What’s more, many of the land owners are merely individuals who may not even live in the gas producing areas of Virginia.
They may not know what’s going on and the state’s Gas and Oil Board and the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy are supposed to tell them. That’s a tough pull since the state has all of TWO (count ’em) regulators overseeing something like 1,000 production wellheads.
So much for the whining about over regulation.
It’s really too bad since natural gas is coming into its own. There’s a flurry of mergers such as ExxonMobil’s acquisition of XTO Energy. Big new reserves have been found in the U.S. and Canada.
Sounds great. But who will have the advantage? Big companies such as those at the Virginia Chamber’s one-sided energy conference. Small property owners don’t have a place at the table.
Peter Galuszka