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West Virginia Farm Bureau urges local landowners to fight forced pooling bill

By David Kirk, Times West Virginian

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — Officials from the West Virginia Farm Bureau say partner bills heading through the West Virginia Legislature would create a one-sided system for leasing land to oil and natural gas companies.

Speaking Monday to a group of landowners and farmers at the Bridgeport Conference Center, Dwayne O’Dell, government affairs director for W.Va. Farm Bureau said Senate Bill 538 and House Bill 2853 would create a controversial system of forced pooling.

“It’s an extremely one-sided bill,” said Dwayne O’Dell, director of government affairs for the West Virginia Farm Bureau. “We want the oil and natural gas reserves to develop and we want fair leases.”

This bill would allow oil and gas companies to propose a unit of land for shallow wells. The size of these units are unlimited in the current wording of the bill, similar bills have a limit of 640 acres.

The landowners within these units then must work out a deal with the fuel companies. However, the main issue the bureau takes with the bill is that if owners of 65% of the land agree to lease, the other 35% is forced into a lease written up by the company as long as the company attempted negotiation…

To read more: https://www.timeswv.com/news/tuesday_news/west-virginia-farm-bureau-urges-local-landowners-to-fight-forced-pooling-bill/article_7d6c900e-8078-11eb-b0b3-4f361dd11fcf.html

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