
The play has gained national notice, most recently in the Los Angeles Times, which ran this map and where Miguel Bustillo wrote, "Freelance landmen are coaxing naive landowners into signing away gas rights for small amounts and are then selling the contracts at huge profit. [Shreveport Councilman Michael] Long said he was outraged to hear the story of a man who turned to his preacher, a landman, for advice and ended up signing with him for $200 an acre when bonuses were going for thousands. ... Firms that earlier this year were leasing land for $200 an acre are now paying upward of $20,000 an acre."
In the Shreveport paper today, columnist Teddy Allen offers ideas for how DeSoto Parish, south of Shreveport, could use the $28.7 million windfall it will get from Haynesville Shale leases, and he complains about a recent New York Times story "in which we were depicted as suddenly rich hillbillies trading in junk cars for new ones and trailer homes for brick housing. That's the northern journalists' definition of hillbilly: someone who gets some money and upgrades." (Read more)
Louisiana Mineral Board Secretary Marjorie McKeithen said, "We are experiencing something akin to a modern day gold rush due to excitement about the Haynesville Shale discovery." For the state Department of Natural Resources Web site about the gas play, click here.
2 comments:
The Haynesville Shale Mineral Rights you own couldn't just be sold on a whim since you might end up getting less for what it's actually worth.
If those people who hurriedly sold their mineral rights did their homework, they might have actually earned a lot more than what they were paid in the first place.
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