With the continuing development and expansion of shale resources occurring across the state, questions regarding how this affects land and property values often arise.
Jeffrey R. Kern, senior appraiser with Resource Technologies Corp., will help answer that question during Penn State Extension’s shale webinar from 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. Thursday.
In Pennsylvania alone, during the last half of 2013, the majority of the 4,400 plus producing wells involved leases with Pennsylvania land owners.  The mineral rights and shale activity plays an important part in property values.
Kern states that the buying and leasing boom are over. As predicted, current renewal offers for undeveloped leases in some areas are much lower than during the peak and, in fact, some leases are being abandoned.
The industry has moved from speculative buying and leasing to a mature operation based on the knowledge gained and on current market realities. Development activity, lease rates and related property values are following this trend.
Penn State Extension’s Marcellus Education Team provides monthly webinars on a variety of topics. Upcoming webinars for 2014 include:
- ·      April 17,   Pennsylvania Royalty Calculations and Decline Curves, Jim Ladlee, associate director, Penn State Marcellus Center, and director of Special Initiatives, Shale Training & Education Center
- May 15,  World Oil and Gas Resources, Consumption, and New Trends According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, Aloulou Fawzi, industry economist and project manager, Exploration and Production Team, EIA at the U.S. Department of Energy
While free, registrations for the webinars are necessary, and all can go to the Penn State Extension Natural Gas Events page to register and for more information for each upcoming webinar.  It is important that all who register provide an e-mail address in order to receive the link for the upcoming webinar. For more information, contact Carol Loveland at 570-320-4429 or by email at cal24@psu.edu.
Previous webinars, publications and information also are available on the Penn State Extension natural gas Web site, covering a variety of topics such as Act 13, seismic testing, air pollution from gas development; water use and quality; natural gas liquids regional development, natural gas reserves; gas-leasing considerations for landowners; legal issues surrounding gas development; and the impact of Marcellus gas development on forestland.
