Marcellus Shale, we first started bringing you information of these gas leases back in 2008! That’s when our State REALTOR Association (PAR) had Attorneys Lester Greevy and Dale Tice from Tioga County speak to our members. They specialize in these types of contracts. In June we saw our first “Hydrocarbon Deeds.” These two transfers were both filed in Jefferson Township (the Hidden Valley side of the mountain) and totaled over 3 MILLION DOLLARS!
Yes, the type of deed caught our eyes but the $1,638,127.49 and $1,371,041.49 transfer prices made us dig a little deeper! Usually deeds for transfer of minerals are recorded WITH A $1.00 PRICE tied to them with NO transfer tax involved. Here’s a copy of one of Hydrocarbon Deeds if you’d like to take a peek!
Both transfers were from company to company. In fact the Grantor on both transactions was BRC Minerals, LP from Texas and the buyers were; Oxy USA, Inc a Delaware corporation with a Texas address and BP Mineral Holdings II, LLC also a Texas company.
Here are some questions and thoughts that came to us. Did they really pay for only a partial interest? It appears that these transfers were for only 23-25% “undivided interest (on an eight-eights (8/8ths) basis)”. That just says to us they didn’t get the whole cow!
Where was the parcel? Of course we were thinking that it was one large farm. As the transfer was from and to out of state companies we were trying to figure out where the well would appear! After trying to read the deed and pulling up previous deeds we saw that there are MULTIPLE PROPERTIES INVOLVED!
The transfer tax was divided among 16 different school districts! Even though it is Greek to us we’ll do our best to keep you updated with resources!
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