Real Estate & Property Law

Gas Fortunes in Future Litigation

By Alan Ackerman

If the Collingwood shale (9,500 feet below the surface) turns out to be an economically viable gas storage area, we can foresee the myriad of litigation which will ensue in Michigan.  The issue of how far one can obtain gas, including entry onto adjacent parcels, will be litigated and relitigated for years to come.  The issue of whether the Collingwood shale strata was considered in the original gas and oil deeds will be thought about just as much.  
 

DetNews.com      

 It looks as if Michigan is loaded in a ready-to-go energy resource -- natural gas locked deep in a shelf of shale almost two miles down. Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and energy expert, calls new technology to extract natural gas "the biggest energy innovation of the decade."

In the Michigan oil and gas world, the buzz centers on a single well in Missaukee County -- a county just 8 miles east of Cadillac -- drilled by the Canadian oil giant Encana last fall. With no history in Michigan, the company moved in quietly in 2008, acquired 250,000 acres, and then chose a spot in Pioneer Township on the so-called Collingwood Shale.

Encana drilled down 9,500 feet, then 5,000 feet horizontally, a technique that enables the driller to tap into a deep reservoir and then capture gas in an almost mile-long swathe.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).