Mysterious notebook fuels Ohio drilling feud

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Mysterious notebook fuels Ohio drilling feud

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A memo that appears to coach buyers of oil and gas drilling leases to use deceptive tactics on unsuspecting landowners has provoked a state investigation and spirited debate in rural Ohio, the latest frontier in America's quest for new energy resources.

The tale of the found memo — unauthenticated but with language similar to that used by a seller familiar to Greene County residents — features aggressive marketers, zealous environmentalists, and vulnerable residents.

So high are the stakes in the rush to lock up leases of fuel-rich Marcellus and Utica shale lands that Ohio's top law enforcement official investigated the notebook one resident found near her driveway in April. Was it really a playbook for a "landman," one of the door-to-door energy company representatives who've blanketed shale regions in the Northeast for months, coaxing landowners to lease in hopes that drillers strike it rich in their backyards?

Attorney General Mike DeWine could find no evidence it belonged to Jim Bucher, a landman for West Bay Exploration Co., based in Traverse City, Mich., or that it was used to mislead area residents. Yet his investigation also stopped short of identifying an alternative owner, leaving the memo's true origins a mystery.

http://www.mycenturylink.com/news/r...ews_id=2046340&src=most_popular_viewed&page=1
 

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