Posted on 09/22/2011 9:39:03 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
For anyone who's played the game "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral," it might seem obvious that the Marcellus shale isn't alive and doesn't grow -- it's a rock layer in the ground, so it's a mineral.
In the Pennsylvania courts, the answer is not so clear.
A Susquehanna County Common Pleas court is headed for a hearing to determine whether the gas-rich Marcellus shale is a mineral, and therefore, included in mineral rights. The state Superior Court ruled this month that case law is unclear, leaving big questions over who legitimately controls drilling rights and the valuable natural gas in the mile-deep rock layer, legal observers say.
"With this ruling, it is now not clear who owns the rights to Marcellus gas where there has been a 'mineral' reservation," said Ross Pifer, director of the Agricultural Law Resource and Reference Center at Penn State's Dickinson School of Law. "The leases will still be valid, but they may not convey rights to the Marcellus shale."
Pennsylvania is unique among states in that it does not consider gas as a mineral when it comes to land rights and leases, said Sean Moran, an energy lawyer at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, Downtown. It's known as the "Dunham rule," a precedent the state Supreme Court set in 1882. The justices have ruled that any land deal involving "mineral rights" -- but not specifically including gas or oil -- essentially does not transfer those oil and gas rights along with the minerals.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Marcellus Shale? Is that a football player? ;^)
Oil is not a mineral either so why would they not lump it in with natural gas. Neither is coal, for that matter.
What the “Frack” is going on ... ?
Is it animal, mineral or vegetable?
Shale is a sedimentary rock. It isn’t a mineral though it does have minerals in it. Ultimately it doesn’t matter because nobody is mining the shale.
Obviously torts and contracts is easier than strat/sed with a lab.
If the bio theory of petroleum genesis is true then it isn’t purely a mineral and in some sense is alive. lol
I guess PA doesn’t have COG rights.
Is it animal, mineral or vegetable?
NO!
Ah! It’s a spiritual entity then....
Minerals are solids, each with a distinct crystalline structure, by (geologic) definition. Shale is a mineral, but natural gas isn’t. Oil isn’t a mineral, either. However, if oil is legally a “mineral,” then certainly gas ought to be.
Call is slate and use it for building material.
Better watch out, Bolivia is going to the UN to confer rights on all living things.
The article specifies that oil isn't a "mineral" in PA either.
Ah! It’s a spiritual entity then
Close the congregation of the holy earth are being used by the new world order to keep terrorists happy and rich so the NWO can take over the world.
I thought he was a rapper.
Slate is a metamorphic rock. It was shale at one time but then it was subjected to heat and pressure which turns it into slate.
That’s exactly why you always get an Oil Gas and Mineral Lease.
They can’t even sell the salt water from a well without paying you for it.
Shale is sedimentary rock and has no unique, fixed crystalline structure. You have contradicted yourself.
It would probably fit into the description of “mineral” if the question is “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” but it would not be classed as a mineral (a crystalline or semi crystalline material of fairly unique chemical composition) in geologist terms.
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