Barnett Shale

White Chapel Corridor agrees to $22,500 deal

Just when you thought XTO Energy was starting to build momentum with its lease signings in the Barnett Shale, its rival Chesapeake Energy comes along and stops it.

The White Chapel Corridor in Southlake and a few other nearby neighborhood groups agreed last night to a deal with Chesapeake that will pay a signing bonus of $22,500.

Here are other terms of the lease:

• 25 percent, cost-free royalty
• 3-year initial term with an option for another two years and a second signing bonus of $18,000

The group that agreed to the deal includes Diamond Circle, Mission Hill Estates, Foxborough, Southview, Lakewood Acres, Summerplace-Highland, Oak Hill, Southridge Lakes, Chapel Downs, Coventry Manor, Fox Hollow, Ravenaux, Siena, Laurel Wood, Dove Area Gas Group, LaPaloma, Princeton and Shady Lane.

The group represents about 3,000 acres.

Chesapeake's previous high offer was $17,000 per acre for a signing bonus. XTO had gone without making a specific offer for a bonus but had said it wouldn't be outbid, Trenton Stillwell, the group's leader, has said previously.

Here's what we've said about the White Chapel Corridor previously.

--David Wethe

White Chapel Corridor (SL) partners up for 3,000 acres

The group in Southlake known as the White Chapel Corridor has recently merged with several other groups in its area to put together a total of about 3,000 acres for negotiating purposes with drilling companies.

The groups joining White Chapel are the Southlake East Corridor and several other more or less unnamed neighborhoods, according to a release recently put out.

The groups have agreed on a "common lease" that has been sent out to competing drilling companies. The groups have a standing offer from Chespapeake Energy for a bonus of $17,000 per acre, while XTO Energy has not made an actual bonus offer but has committed to not be outbid in the market, according to White Chapel's release.

Here's a link to the group's website.

"The lease encourages gas companies to move forward quickly and (to) completely develop the area," according to the release. "It places strict parameters on noise and visual appearance while giving the company the flexibility they need to develop the minerals."

Here's what we've said about the White Chapel group before.

Click here for a map of the area where the group is in: Download pastedGraphic.pdf

--David

XTO meets with CAMRA and others in NE Tarrant

The Colleyville Area Mineral Rights Association held its long-awaited meeting earlier this week with officials from XTO Energy and its land company, Colt Exploration.

Grady Walker described the meeting as more informational than that of a sales pitch. XTO is currently sitting with the highest offer to many northeast Tarrant County neighborhoods, with an $18,500 bonus offer, a 25 percent royalty and a three-year primary and two-year secondary term. Dale Resources, on behalf of Chesapeake Energy, had previously made an offer for $17,000 an acre, with all of the other terms being the same as XTO's offer.

Walker's group invited representatives from about six of the largest neighborhood groups to XTO's meeting. They included:

• Continental Park Estates, in Southlake
• Pool Road Coalition, in Colleyville
• Hidden Lakes, in Keller
• D/FW West, in Grapevine and Euless
• Southlake Park Oil and Gas Group
• North Keller Neighbors Together, in Keller, Westlake and Southlake
• White Chapel Corridor, in Southlake

There were about 60 people at the meeting, a little more than the number of people who showed up a couple weeks earlier to Dale's presentation at the Southlake Hilton Hotel.

"Now comes the hard part," Walker wrote in a release issued today. "We need to work with these companies to get behind the presentations, lofty words and 'contract examples' to see what specifically they are willing to offer CAMRA members in terms of financial and other contractual commitments."

Walker said after the two-hour meeting, that XTO and Chesapeake are now both considered "excellent companies." He said he now expects "a lot of activity over the next several weeks."

--David Wethe

Potential bidding war spreads to Southlake

In addition to parts of Colleyville, XTO Energy has apparently spread its counter offer to areas of Southlake.

The White Chapel Corridor reports that it had a conversation yesterday with a high-ranking XTO official, who said it wants to be in the game.

"XTO has repeatedly made it clear that they will not be out bid," Trenton Stillwell said in an e-mail that went out to White Chapel members Thursday.

But Stillwell, who is one of the leaders of the White Chapel Corridor, added something else interesting about the bonus numbers:

"We have not and will not be responding to the bonuses until we have the lease language our members would favor.  Primarily we want the royalty clause to be clear and easy to read so that all of our members can read and reasonably discern what there royalty payment will be.  We want to know that our minerals will be developed in the shortest amount of time with the least possible impact and we want common case law references included in our lease."

As a result, XTO did not make the same verbal offer of $18,500 that it made to the nearby CAMRA and Pool Road Coalition groups in Colleyville.

Here's what we said yesterday about the Colleyville Area Mineral Rights Association and the Pool Road Coalition yesterday.

--David Wethe

(Archive photo: Bicentennial Park)

Dale goes after leases in NE Tarrant County

  Here's the full story from S-T staffer David Wethe on Dale Resources' pitch to neighborhood groups in Colleyville, Southlake, North Richland Hills, and Keller for leases. The offer could apply broadly to people in Colleyville and Southlake. Don't have a lease offer from Dale? Read this story to find out more on what you can do to find out if you're eligible.

Here's S-T staffer Adrienne Nettles' story from earlier this week on the Southlake City Council's consideration of changes that would allow drilling closer to homes.

Pictured is a map of drill sites that Dale Resources says Chesapeake has secured in the affected Northeast Tarrant County area. Dale reps handed the map out to neighborhood leaders at a meeting Tuesday night.

-- Scott Nishimura

Dale makes broad pitch for $17,000 in NE Tarrant

Dale Resources made an unusual and far-flung pitch last night to lease mineral rights for about 5,000 acres in Northeast Tarrant County.

The offer is for a bonus of $17,000 an acre and a 25 percent royalty. The lease term is for three years and an option for a two-year renewal.

The offer was made to a packed room full of about 40 community leaders from Colleyville, Southlake, and parts of North Richland Hills and Keller. As neighborhood group leaders and HOA presidents spilled out of the small conference room at the Southlake Hilton after the meeting, at least one expressed intrigue and possible interest in the offer.

Michael Muhm, leader of the Pool Road Coalition, called the offer "very interesting." He said XTO Energy has a competing offer out to property owners in his group's area for a bonus of roughly $12,500 an acre. But he said his group is looking at not only the best dollar amount but who would also be the best drilling company for property owners to partner with, and he said Chesapeake is looking strong.

Dale has also proposed 11 signing dates throughout the month of May in Colleyville.

Dale officials said the offer is good for anyone living in a large swath of northeast Tarrant, mainly southwest of 114. But the land company also did say that if there was not enough people that started signing, the offer could go down. A deadline date was not given for how long the offer would be good for.

Among the affected areas are the upscale, 1,100-acre Timarron community in Southlake, the Pool Road Coalition and the Colleyville Area Mineral Rights Association.

Stay tuned to this space for more updates, and to the S-T print edition Thursday for a full story. We're trying to get a handle on who was in the room Tuesday night, and how broad the area is that we're talking about.

If you were in the room and you have a perspective, we'd love to hear it. Just drop us an email at dwethe@star-telegram.com or call us!

-- David Wethe

(Photo: Southlake trolley)

White Chapel (Southlake) group sees competition

Here's more on the White Chapel Corridor Group in Southlake...

Homeowners in the group now are entertaining inquiries from two companies. XTO Energy is offering to sign leases at $5,000 per acre and a 25 percent royalty -- home sites in the area range between half an acre and an acre. Dale Resources, signing leases for Chesapeake Energy, has sent out letters, saying it wants to sign up leases and offers are coming soon.

The White Chapel Corridor Group began organizing four weeks ago after three homeowners reported being approached in door-to-door soliciations by landmen repping XTO. Those property owners signed the lease offers.

The group says it covers the area generally from White Chapel Boulevard on the west, 1709 on the south, Carroll on the east, and Texas 114 on the north. Owners of a 120-acre farm inside 114 and Carroll reportedly are negotiating their own deal and represent a potential drill site.

White Chapel Corridor's neighborhoods: Mission Hill Estates, Chapel Downs, Oak Hill, Homes on Highlands, Lakewood Acres, Foxborough, Southview, and Diamond Circle. The group says it's included homes west of White Chapel just north of Bicentennial Park.

Trenton Stillwell, president of the Mission Hill Estates association and one of the lead organizers of the White Chapel Corridor Group, says the group potentially covers 382 homes. "One half of the homeowners have joined the organization and committed not to negotiate individually," Stillwell said.

The organizers say they want the best financial terms, as well as careful consideration of environmental issues such as drill site location, potential impact on the water wells many of the homeowners have, height and lighting of rigs, hours of operation, and truck traffic.

"There are so many other things that go into a lease than just negotiating a bonus and percentage," said Karen Whitaker, the Mission Hill Estates secretary and another chief organizer behind the White Chapel Corridor Group.

In the early stages of organization, there were seeds of opposition, Stillwell said. "Initially, the group was comprised of people who didn't care about the money. They just didn't want a huge yellow light blinking in the backyard," he said.

But the potential availability of drill sites led to an assessment of inevitability and a move to band together a larger group. "It's a Right to Drill State," Whitaker says. "It's going to happen one way or another."

Meanwhile, the White Chapel Group says it's just learned of an $11,500-per-acre offer going out to homeowners in the Lonesome Dove Estates neighborhood north of 114 in Southlake. More on that when we get it.

Click here to visit White Chapel Corridor Group's web site. The group is asking interested homeowners to contact their homeowner associations or block captains. Click here to send an email to the group: missionhillestates@mac.com.

Click here to read our previous posts on Southlake.

-- Scott Nishimura

Is your neighborhood receiving lease offers? Click here to tell us about it!

(Photos: Bicentennial Park)

Seeds of organizing in Southlake...

A Southlake homeowner group calling itself White Chapel Corridor Group is organizing and signing up members in the area south of Texas 114, west of Carroll, north of 1709, and off of White Chapel Boulevard. Here's the group's web site. More information about this group as we get it.

Click here to read Wednesday's post on this blog about lease offers that have started to move into this part of Southlake.

-- Scott Nishimura

Lease offers drift into Southlake

A hearty welcome to Southlake, which like recent newcomers Colleyville and Grapevine, is making its first appearance on this blog today.

A homeowner in the Chapel Downs Addition -- east of North White Chapel Boulevard, south of Texas 114 and north of Bicentennial Park -- reports an offer from a landman representing XTO Energy. The base terms: $5,000 per-acre signing bonus and 25 percent royalty. Chapel Downs is in the heart of S.P.I.N. (Southlake Program for the Involvement of Neighborhoods) District 10.

A Southlake City Council committee has been reviewing the city's gas drilling ordinance for possible changes; the city itself hasn't signed any gas drilling deals. Click here to read the current city gas drilling code.

-- Scott Nishimura

Is your neighborhood receiving lease offers? Click here to tell us about it!

(Photo: Pet celebration at Southlake's Bicentennial Park)