December 28, 2012 – TriCities – Gas Royalty Dispute Between Mineral Owners, Producers Returns To Back Burner

Gas Royalty Dispute Between Mineral Owners, Producers Returns To Back Burner

Posted: Saturday, February 21, 2009 7:03 am | Updated: 5:21 pm, Fri Dec 28, 2012. Daniel Gilbert

Kyle Robinson didn’t want to lease his gas rights to a corporation, but what really burned him up was receiving a check in the mail informing him that he owed the corporation money for selling his methane.

Robinson is one in a legion of mineral owners whose property has been force-pooled by energy corporations, who pay owners a royalty fee in exchange for producing on their land. At issue is the gas well operators’ practice of deducting costs they incur after harvesting the gas, which gas owners claim deprives them of their royalty, and which the operators contend fairly distributes the financial burden of getting the gas to market.

The long-simmering conflict reached the General Assembly in a pair of bills this session, but by last week both had died, leaving the contentious issue unresolved.