North Huntingdon commissioners want more time to study natural gas leasing

A majority of North Huntingdon commissioners decided this week they need more time to study a lease proposal to tap a pocket of natural gas trapped in a 4½-acre parcel of township land and possibly get a better deal of the drilling company.

On Wednesday, commissioners voted 5-2 to approve a lease with Apex Energy of Marshall that would have allowed the driller to get the gas under the property adjoining the Peregrine Drive homes.

Commissioners Jason Atwood, Fran Bevan, Richard Gray, Eric Hass and Tom Hempel supported filing the lease even though an Apex Energy leasing agent told commissioners last week the agreement would expire June 30. Commissioners Zachary Haigis and Ronald Zona opposed tabling a vote.

Apex Energy intended to pay the township $6,750 for a five-year lease to drill on the property to which North Huntingdon holds oil and gas rights, as well as pay the municipality a royalty of 16½ percent of the price. ‘Apex receives when it sells. the commodity. The township would receive the royalty checks monthly if its natural gas was sold in the market. If the township had received a royalty check, the five-year lease was to be automatically renewed.

C. Zane Keslar, senior lease acquisition officer for Apex, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting and could not be reached for comment.

Apex wants to drill to create seven pipelines from a well pad near Herminie Road in southern St. Edward Parish. Apex would drill 8,000 feet, then drill horizontally toward the township’s methane pocket. This would fracture the shale layers with a liquid solution to release the gas, but no surface work would take place at North Huntingdon, Keslar said.

The driller presented the township with the proposed lease earlier this month because he had not previously discovered the township owned the gas rights to his land.

Hempel said he believes Apex Energy’s proposed lease will still be valid next month and the company may be willing to negotiate.

Apex would not negotiate terms of the lease, Keslar told TribLive.

“It seems to me that they are imposing this on us,” Hempel said.

Zona said waiting until July might be too late.

“There is no point in discussing it because the agreement is no longer on the table,” he said.

Apex Energy’s June 30 deadline could simply be a “seller-set” date, Gray said.

In seeking to file the lease agreement, Gray said the township should have done more of its own research.

Leasing public land in North Huntingdon to drillers is not a new concept. Gray said the township has allowed natural gas companies to drill under Oak Hollow Park and Braddock’s Trail Park.

Unlike the township commissioners, the North Huntingdon Township municipal authority last week approved a lease with Apex Energy to drill beneath its 0.5-acre parcel near township land. The authority will pay $1,000 for the right to obtain that gas, said Michael Branthoover, executive director of the authority.