Range Resources can’t find gas, oil heirs, wants bank to act as trustee
Range Resources identified a Washington County commissioner among 60 people who inherited oil and gas rights to a 111-acre tract in Buffalo Township, but it’s looking for others.
Among the 60 or so named respondents is Washington County Commission Chairman Larry Maggi, who addressed the issue during last fall’s campaign after news of his gas and oil rights came at him from out of the blue.
“Somehow, I’m the heir of somebody around Exit 3 in Taylorstown,” Maggi said. “It’s off the Hertig side” of the family.
“I had an uncle that was killed,” he continued. “He was a marshal out in Kansas. Somebody reserved the gas and oil rights 100 years ago We got a couple checks for $28 and change. I told my wife all it makes me now is I have to say I’m a leaseholder.”
In the 2011 campaign, Harlan Shober was the only commissioner candidate who personally had a lease with a natural gas company. He is part of a Range Resources Marcellus Shale unit, but he said in October, “I’m not seeing any royalties. They’re not drilling in those areas. We’re in a kind of a slowdown.”
The county has derived millions of dollars in revenue from its Range Resources wells in Cross Creek County Park over the past few years, although its income dropped by 75 percent recently due to the large supply of oil and natural gas, which has depressed prices.
This leaves Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan as the only one on the three-member board who is not a gas or oil leaseholder.
In the petition filed Friday in Washington County Court, attorneys for Range Resources-Appalachia LLC said the Buffalo Township tract has been divided into 20 separate tax parcels that vary in size from one-half to 38 acres. Maggi’s “undivided fractional ownership interest” is listed as 7/1,152.
Identified heirs, along with Maggi, live in this area, other parts of Pennsylvania, plus West Virginia, Ohio, New York, Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Calgary, Canada.
Agents acting on behalf of Range were unable to find heirs of Helen Bane, Elizabeth Hertig Chapman Pruess, Ethel Irene Park, Ulyses Hertig, Wyit E. Wright Jr., Robert E. Wright and Von E. Wright. Although they checked various courthouse row offices in several counties in several states, the Observer-Reporter and Internet sites, they were unable to unearth any information, according to the petition.
Range Resources has asked Washington County Court to allow CNB Bank, formerly County National Bank of Clearfield, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNB Financial Corp., to serve as trustee of a proposed fund for unknown owners’ interests under the provisions of the Dormant Oil and Gas Act.
Oil and gas ownership was severed from the surface estate in 1909, according to the petition, for which no hearing date has been set.