News

Current Offers and Deals

For the latest GRNA announements regarding Legal Action against Holland/XTO Click Here -- note that you will need to decide whether to pursue legal action to enforce your rights.  Or check out our now-outdated page with the "latest" Offers in the works for GRNA.  See other Deals that have closed in Tarrant county for comparison.

Legal Action!

For the latest GRNA announements regarding Legal Action against Holland/XTO Click Here -- note that you will need to decide whether to pursue legal action to enforce your rights.

November 14, 2008

Holland/XTO Rejecting Signed Leases

Despite the prior assurances that all GRNA  homeowners who had signed thier leases prior to October 15 would be paid, Holland, on behalf of XTO, has been returning lease  paperwork. The original signed  leases are accompanied by a letter stating that XTO did not approve the lease in accordance with the payment agreement.  We are having these documents and the previous assurances reviewed by legal counsel to determine what, if any, recourse exists.
 
Once we are clear on the possible options we will communicate 'next steps' here and by email.
 
Your continued patience is appreciated as the GRNA volunteers continue to try to work for the common goals.

October 18 , 2008

We are actively working on this matter

GRNA Member,

If you are not willing to read this email carefully, please just delete it NOW!

First, yes it is true that Holland/XTO have rescinded their offer to GRNA.

If you've already signed a lease with them, XTO says they will honor the contract and pay your signing bonus, and they have stated this in writing via email. They apparently sent those form letters to everyone without checking to see who had signed and who had not. So it looks good for you who have signed, but don't make big plans for the money until you actually get it -- their credibility is not perfect at this point.

Many of us, myself included, have NOT yet signed. Even if I had, I didn't put hundreds of hours of community service into this effort to watch my neighbors get shafted. I assure you we are VERY actively working on deciding what our options and next steps are, and we will send out another email and update the web site as soon as we can. At this point we think we have a strong position, but we don't wish to disclose the details of our position until we discuss this with legal counsel and give XTO a chance to do the right thing. Rest assured that if they don't do the right thing they will have a HUGE fight on their hands.

If you are an attorney who is a member of GRNA, we'd sure like to hear from you, even if you have no specialized knowledge and/or are not willing to make any commitments at this point. We'd appreciate even some brief "off the record" opinions on a couple of general legal points.

Please don't pressure your neighbors who have already signed to "not go forward" with XTO -- they have no influence or choice. But be sure that XTO will want all of our mineral rights at some point, and we will not settle for anything less than the agreed terms. Again, you'll need to be patient as we work out the details, and realize that even once we work it out we can't publish our entire strategy and options to everyone in GRNA without it being likely that Holland/XTO and the press see this information before we are ready for them too.

We will be asking for more volunteers. We are likely to ask for a very small voluntary donation (probably no more than $10) to fund the continued web site maintenance, the cost of this professional email list server, and other such items, but this is unofficial and we don't have any way to accept funds at this point.

Please do not sign any mineral rights lease without letting us know about your offer first.

If you no longer wish to receive email updates from GRNA for any reason, please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

Please continue to watch the website www.grna.us for updates, as the web site will be updated more often than we will send out emails.

Thanks,
David Cole
GRNA Volunteer

Please be patient going forward as we are actively working on this matter. We will post the latest information on the website as it comes in. Please check the website often, but do not email questions, as we are being flooded with inquires.

October 17 , 2008

XTO, Chesapeake, others rescind high-bonus gas-drilling offers

Gas producers are suspending leasing efforts and slashing bonus offers in several parts of the Barnett Shale, as the industry grapples with lower natural gas prices and turmoil in the financial markets... more

Full Article in the Star-Telegram: http://www.star-telegram.com/100/story/980594.html

October 16 , 2008

All Signing Parties have been cancelled! XTO has rescinded their offer to the GRNA, effective immediately. See details below or view the Offers and Deals here.

Jim,

XTO Energy regretfully rescinds the offer to GRNA immediately.

Holland Acquisitions signed 80 leases last night on behalf of XTO. The signing event last night was for the Wintergreen II neighborhood, and the only folks who were turned away were those from other neighborhoods, for whom Holland did not have paperwork prepared. Again, no one from Wintergreen II was turned away, and Holland closed up shop when no one showed up for 45 minutes. Anyone who has signed a lease that Holland has in its possession as of last night will be paid.

The volatile market conditions we are all living through have caused corporations around the globe to refocus corporate strategy.

Regards,

Ryan M. Skelly
XTO ENERGY INC.
810 Houston St.
Fort Worth, Texas 76102

NOTE: GRNA is well aware that the information above regarding Wintergreen North II is disingenuous at best, and blatantly false in the view of many people from Wintergreen North II who were turned away that day with a variety of conflicting excuses given to different residents. Holland and XTO are certainly not so naive as to think that if they hold a signing event that is supposed to be open until 7:00 p.m. on a weekday that just because they have a 45-minute lull that it is somehow acceptable to "close up shop" before 5 p.m. They certainly realized more people would be coming after work -- but rather than admitting they closed for other reasons Mr. Skelly implies that they closed because of the lull. Though they may not have turned away anyone prior to "closing up shop" they certainly turned away plenty of Wintergreen North II residents that evening after they closed and before the announced closing time of 7:00 p.m.

September 30, 2008

Holland/XTO will be holding GRNA lease signing parties starting tomorrow, October 1st. See the Signing parties for details.

If we have your email address but not your property address, you may be contacted soon via email or phone by a GRNA volunteer requesting your address and subdivision. They will not ask for other personal information.

September 22, 2008

Deal has been reached! See details of the Holland and XTO Offer.

The past week was quite busy with negotiating and going over the details of our agreement with Holland and XTO. Here is where we stand. We have given written intent to work with Holland and XTO per the following terms:

• $24,000 per mineral acre signing bonus
• 25% royalties $20,000 secondary term bonus (if it comes into play)
  

September 6, 2008

See link ABOVE for Latest Update from GRNA (Glade Rd Neighborhood Alliance). Prior Updates are shown below.

DON'T SIGN A LEASE YET!

We currently have an offer from Holland/XTO for $24,000 per acre, 25% royalty, with fairly good Lease terms. Holland has removed the short deadline for our acceptance of this offer and they now appear to be negotiating with us in good faith. We have not accepted this offer, so it is NOT available to you yet. We are negotiating with Holland to increase the offer to $25,000 per acre and correct a few flaws in the Lease terms before we accept it.

Holland is currently offering to residents in our area $20,000 per acre, 25% royalty, with Lease terms that we think are TERRIBLE (they are using a 2-page lease that appears aimed at a rural setting and one example of a major flaw is that it requires that you warranty the title -- if they make a mistake checking your title chain and it turns out later that you don't own your mineral rights after all, and they figure that out 5 years down the road, you would have to pay back everything they had paid to you!). We are all lucky to have GRNA working for us so we aren't stuck with this lease.

If you sign a lease now, you are going to get this lease which we (GRNA committee members) think has very poor terms, but you are welcome to do so if you think it is in your best interest. If you already signed a lease, sorry, you are stuck with it and we can't help you!

GRNA Negotiating Committee met Friday night, 9/5. We will be meeting with Holland next week, probably Tuesday 9/9.

It is our goal to approve a Lease as soon as possible, but we don't want to approve something that we will all regret for the next 30 to 40 years. HANG IN THERE, we think we are getting close. If by some chance we are not able to reach an agreement with Holland, we are still being courted by two other major players.

September 4, 2008

Don't Sign a Lease Tonight unless you read the information below first and still think it is in your best interest to do so. And please TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS about this!

***There is a lot of information on this page, so please be patient and read thoroughly (for critical information just read the next two paragraphs). The links to more information can be found at the very bottom of the page, just below the general information on urban drilling***

Current Offer and Status as of Saturday August 23rd: Earlier this week we (GRNA) received an offer of $24,000 per acre and 25% royalty. We are currently looking at the details of this offer (there are more to the terms than just these two items) and we are in active contact with multiple companies who are making offers to residents in the GRNA area. The lease committee will be meeting Monday 8/25 to finalize our response [we responded on 8/26 and are waiting to hear back]. Lower offers are being made by multiple companies by mail, by phone and at signing meetings -- if you accept a lower offer you are likely to be throwing away the difference between your offer and what we negotiate, which we expect to be AT LEAST $24,000 per acre and 25% royalty.

August 23, 2008

Current Offer and Status as of Saturday August 23rd: Earlier this week we (GRNA) received an offer of $24,000 per acre and 25% royalty. We are currently looking at the details of this offer (there are more to the terms than just these two items) and we are in active contact with multiple companies who are making offers to residents in the GRNA area. The lease committee will be meeting Monday 8/25 to finalize our response [we responded on 8/26 and are waiting to hear back]. Lower offers are being made by multiple companies by mail, by phone and at signing meetings -- if you accept a lower offer you are likely to be throwing away the difference between your offer and what we negotiate, which we expect to be AT LEAST $24,000 per acre and 25% royalty.

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