Communities eye US-style fracking deal

Fracking set off a modern day land rush across the US, as “land men” acting on behalf of exploration and production firms scrambled to secure rights to drill and fracture underground formations for oil and gas.

Landowners received hundreds or even thousands of dollars per acre in exchange for allowing wells to be drilled and pressure pumped, and hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars more if the wells struck petroleum and were put into production.

But recently, Shell, BHP Billiton and Chesapeake Energy have been forced to take billions of dollars in writedowns because they overpaid for mineral leases that proved less productive than expected. In many instances, companies have tried to renegotiate, or repudiate the contracts by finding legal defects.