Barnett at DFW provides lessons on shale gas projects at US airports

The US airfield owners are lured by attractive signing bonuses to lease their shale acreage. But shale operators cannot always fulfill their promises to drill, and the Dallas-Fort Worth Barnett shale field development project shows some winners and losers. Pittsburgh International and Allegheny County Airports want to reap a similar financial windfall from their shale resources and signed a deal with Consol Energy in February 2013. Key components of the agreement are a signing bonus of $50 million and royalties on future gas sales at 18% of gross gas sale revenues. The airport hopes to make $450 million on future royalty payments. The bidders need to negotiate with only a single party, normally the airport authority, mainly to settle on an agreeable signing bonus and the royalty percentage on future hydrocarbon sales. The first major operations were the night-time seismic surveys that required the Vibroseis trucks and recording equipment at the runways and platforms of the airport between December 2006 and March 2007.