Natural Gas Leasing

For the past few years, Penn State Cooperative Extension has offered workshops and information to help landowners navigate the legal and practical issues of leasing their land for natural gas exploration and extraction.

The pace of gas exploration in the state accelerated this year after Penn State research suggested that the Marcellus shale, a geologic formation that stretches across a large part of northern and western Pennsylvania and into neighboring states, may contain more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, at least 10 percent of which -- up to $1 trillion worth -- could be recovered with new drilling technology. And that has gas companies, landowners and rural communities scrambling to tap into this energy bonanza's potential profits.