Barnett Shale

Offers going up in Southwest Fort Worth area

The newly formed Southwest Fort Worth Alliance reported today that it's now up to 25 neighborhoods and includes more than 6,000 acres.

We told readers of the the Star-Telegram print edition last week about this newly merged super group. Click here for the story and to see which neighborhoods are part of the group.

Click here to see what we wrote on the blog earlier this year about the group.

The offers are also starting to tick up, but only to specific homeowners groups within the alliance. The alliance hasn't yet begun to negotiate as a group with the energy companies. The highest offer is now up to $25,000 an acre for lease bonuses and a 25 percent royalty, with the usual three-year primary term and an option for another two years.

Tolli Thomas, co-chair of the group, said the alliance is now looking to hold meetings with the drilling companies. The three that have circulated offers to various property owners in the group are Chesapeake Energy, XTO Energy and Carrizo Oil & Gas. Chesapeake and XTO each have multiple well sites that could perhaps reach most of the property owners, Thomas said. Carrizo has mostly gone after homeowners on the southen end of the group's boundaries.

--David Wethe

Activity bubbling up in Wedgwood (Fort Worth)

Chesapeake Energy confirmed today that it bought the Southcliff Shopping Center last week in southwest Fort Worth for a potential drilling site.

That has caught the attention of several nearby neighbors and businesses, including the newly formed Greater Wedgwood Gas Coalition.

The shopping center is at the southeast corner of Granbury Road and Interstate 20, not far from Hulen Mall.

Jerri Robbins, spokeswoman for Chesapeake, said the drilling company does not yet know when it plans to start drilling on the land and how much of the 12.75 acres would be used for drilling.

The Wedgwood Gas Coalition was formed in March and is currently working with two offers that came in around that time:

• $17,000-per-acre bonus, from Carla Petroleum, representing XTO Energy, with a 25 percent royalty and a three-year primary term and an additional two-year option
• $13,000-per-acre bonus, from Dale Resources, representing Chesapeake, with a 25 percent royalty and a three-year primary term and an additional two-year option

But Tolli Thomas, spokeswoman for the Wedgwood group, said her coalition is planning to send out a counter offer later this week to both groups and a proposed contract that Wedgwood would like to see.

Here are the six neighborhood associations that have merged:

• Wedgwood Square
• Wedgwood East
• Wedgwood West
• Wedgwood Central
• Wedgwood Middle
• Overton South

The group now represents about 5,000 homes and 2,000 acres, Thomas said. Property owners in the Wedgwood Neighborhood Association (which is different from all the other Wedgwood groups mentioned above) are still deciding whether it makes sense to going the Greater Wedgwood Gas Coalition, she said.

Here's what we initially have said about property owners in the Wedgwood area.

--David Wethe