Leasing Update

Lease bonuses and royaties throughout the Marcellus play continued to move slightly higher over the past two weeks.

In the northeast, the XTO/Deposit,NY landowner deal and the NWPOA (Wayne County, PA) negotiations have fostered some higher offers in the region. It seems the original $2411/15/5 XTO deal has gained a lot of attention as the landowner's group has reportedly doubled in size since the offer. Chesapeake is trying to pick off some of the members with an offer of $2500/15% for 8 years. The XTO/Deposit deal is scheduled to be signed by this weekend.

The NWPOA is still negotiating so details are sketchy but their latest communique to the members warned to be wary of the details in a new high outside offer of $2775/16.67% for an inital 5 year term. A few weeks ago a good flavor of the offers in the area would have been Chesapeake's (pick 'em) standard offer of: $2100/15/5 or $2300/15/7 or $2400/15%/5+5 but most recently it's up to $2500/15/5 or $2550/16/7 or $2750/15/7.

Moving down-range, offers in Centre and Somerset counties are in the $500/15/5 area. In southwestern Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, while the top bids are still at $1000/16.67/5, the lower tier buyers have moved up from $250 to the $450-$600/13/5/5+5. Ready to drill Range and Atlas 3 year leases are running around $400/13.5/3.

In West Virginia, northern Preston County is seeing slightly higher offers from Chesapeake and Marathon at $350/14/5 while the southern part of the state seems stuck at $100-$200/12.5/5.

Some info from http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=20080524&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=805240337&Ref=AR