T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Utica Landowner Group Partner Edward Sustersic speaks to a large group of Bellaire residents in hopes of negotiating for them to receive favorable oil and gas leases.

BELLAIRE — Utica Landowner Group held a public meeting Wednesday in collaboration with the village of Bellaire to organize and negotiate favorable oil and gas lease terms for both the village and its residents.

For the past several months, the village has been involved in discussions with a potential producer to lease the oil and gas under village property. But after village leaders learned that a company intends to horizontally drill under portions of the community, it reached out to Utica Landowners Group due to a number of the village’s property owners with mineral rights also being approached to sign leases but with less favorable terms than the village was offered.

Utica Landowner Group Partner Edward Sustersic said the group does not promote or market itself and only takes on clients when contacted. He said it has never taken a cent from any client.

“There is no obligation to sign a lease with us, no fees, no commitment to us,” he said. “​​When we put a large group together, how are they going to lease them unless they have our cooperation? And with our cooperation, we do work out a letter of intent on what they need to compensate us for what we’ve done for their benefit as well.”

Sustersic said he isn’t legally able to go into greater detail about what compensation his group receives from the oil and gas companies for supplying the landowners’ information.

“We’re here to assist landowners to put themselves in a better position to obtain a more favorable lease from the industry,” he said. “We got involved at Bellaire’s request. We never organized landowners against the industry, only when we’re requested to help. So this meeting here is because the village was trying to negotiate their own lease and once they learned that the landowners were being offered so much less than what the village was, they asked if we could help their landowners.”

Sustersic added that he recently went through a similar process when he assisted the village of Shadyside and its property owners in obtaining oil and gas leases that contained more favorable terms than those presently being offered to Bellaire’s property owners.

“By uniting together and saying no, the power shifts from the industry. You own the oil and gas, not them. So by uniting together, the company sees they’re wasting their money sending land men out. They’re getting nowhere, and they’re more willing to accept your position,” Sustersic told the landowners in attendance.

Bellaire Mayor Ed Marling said that once the village discovered residents were getting a less favorable offer than the village, it had no interest in agreeing to any terms until the residents and village were offered the same amount.

“We wouldn’t sign if we weren’t going to get everybody equal on acreage because once you get down there,everything’s an open sea down there so that’s what they’re up against,” Marling said of the oil and gas reserves that lie deep beneath the surface across the local region.

“You might say, ‘Yeah, but I just have a little piece of property.’ So let’s say we’re here on Guernsey Street, and there’s a house on each side of Guernsey that can only be a tenth of an acre or something. There is no basis to believe that you should get any less per acre,” Sustersic said. “One parcel isn’t worth more or less than the other. They’ll have to drill through it. They’re down under the ground 2 miles. They need every area under the ground.”

Sustersic said he was pleased with the attendance at the initial meeting and added that he and the village are planning another meeting at the beginning of July. They will notify the public when a time and date are confirmed.

He added that if a Bellaire landowner is interested but wasn’t able to attend the meeting Wednesday, they can contact him at bhseabright@comcast.net or at 304-218-5298.