SWAPO2 Neighborhood Rights

Bonus check distribution updates!

[posted June 12, 2008]

Bonus check distribution, including additional money for street acreage, will be distributed  at the Park Springs Bible Church, 5515 Park Springs, Arlington, Texas, but only to those who signed leases before April 14, 2008 on these dates:

Thursday, June 12^th from 3:30p-6:30p

Saturday, June 14^th from 10:00a-3:00p

Thursday, June 19^th from 3:30p-6:30p,

Friday, June 20 from 3:30p to 6:30p

Saturday, June 21^st from 10:00s-3:00p

817 945-3830

[posted May 2008]

Carburante is preparing additional bonus checks for street acreage and will begin distribution on May 22^nd at the Park Springs Bible Church from 3:30-6:30 p.m.  To ease traffic congestion, you will be notified by subdivision in a letter informing you of the date and time your check will be available.  By May 22^nd, Carburante will have Thousand Oaks and Trails West prepared.

ALL OTHER SUBDIVISONS WILL NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THEIR LETTER IS RECEIVED BEFORE COMING TO THE CHURCH.  If you have not signed your lease yet, please let us know as soon as possible, because Carburante is preparing street bonus checks for people who have already signed first.  It was previously communicated that people who felt more comfortable receiving both bonus checks at the same time could come in on the 22^nd and sign their lease and receive both checks.  Having re-evaluated the scope of this distribution, Carburante decided to prioritize “Leased” before “Not Leased”.  Carburante appreciates your patience with this matter.

Please call Shelley at 817 945-3830 to schedule an appointment if you have not signed your lease.

Saturday, May 24^th NO SIGNINGS--MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Monday, May 26^th NO SIGNINGS--MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Tuesday, May 27^th  3:30-6:30

Thursday, May 29^th 3:30-6:30

Saturday, May 31^st  10:00-3:00

Please remember that even if you miss these dates, you will have many future opportunities to sign. There is no "expiration date" on your lease at this time, and signings will continue on into June.

Carizzo Expands SWAPO2 Acreage Calculation to Center of Street

[posted April 23, 2008] 

Some of you have been asking a lot of questions about “street rights,” which means mineral rights you may have extending to the center of the street. When SWAPO2 originally endorsed a lease with Carizzo and Carburante, we had no guarantee that street rights would be included for all homeowners. We estimated that most residents would have them, but that in some cases the developer or the city would have retained those rights.

This street-rights issue is an ongoing controversy in most of the Barnett Shale groups, whatever drilling company is involved—it is not limited to SWAPO2 and Carrizo. It is an area of legal speculation with proposed legislation and an incomplete judicial record. In our own area, one real estate developer went so far as to try to lease street rights in a subdivision back to his own company way back in January 2007, an action with dubious legal validity. Although this action was unfair to those residents, there was not much that we could do about it in SWAPO2, nor was it the fault of Carrizo/Carburante who had been trying to pay street rights whenever possible.

The good news for SWAPO2 is that Carizzo and Carburante have decided to “do the right thing” whatever the past history of the subdivision, and they have agreed to include acreage to the center of the street in all cases, including those thought previously reserved to other parties. This means those in areas like Kee Brook Estates will now be paid to the center of the street. Other areas will also be included and will be announced in the coming weeks.

Please understand that the acreage increase only applies to those who did not receive it before. The majority of SWAPO2 signups have already have benefited from an expanded acreage calculation when receiving their bonus, and they are due no additional money. Those who previously signed a lease but did not receive this additional acreage will have an opportunity to receive additional bonus compensation. For those who have been waiting to see what would happen before signing, they can be assured that their acreage will include the expanded measurements.

Even with this additional acreage offer, the calculation of street rights (and other potential areas not included in a survey plat) is a complex matter and it will take time to determine it accurately.  We ask that you be patient with Carburante and Carrizo who have proven their generosity and commitment to homeowner rights by extending acreage even to those areas potentially reduced by outside parties.

Those receiving expanded acreage will be notified by mail about their specific property in the coming weeks. Please be patient. If you have further questions about the expanded acreage policy, please email Shelley.

Updated Status of Subdivisions

[posted April 23]

Most of the questions we receive at SWAPO2 are about a specific subdivision. Although residents in the SWAPO2 area should receive a letter via US Mail or hand-delivered flier to their individual address, we are announcing an updated list of lease signings by subdivision. This list will be updated as more subdivisions become available. You do not have to worry about “missing” a date, since those subdivisions already completed will continue to be available at future signings. There is no currently scheduled end-date to the signings: they will continue indefinitely until all reasonable opportunity has been given to those property owners who wish to sign.

Already Signed (but still available for those who missed): Thousand Oaks, Willow Bend, Belle Aceda, Bayberry, Stagecoach Estates, Hilldale, Willow Park (1), Overland stage (round 1), Keebrook, Willow Park (2), Trails East, Trails West,

Began Signing 4/10: Indian Oaks, Vermillion Place, Hillside Oaks, Hillside Oaks Mobile Homes, Overland West, Windsor Terrace, South Forest.

Began  Signing 4/17:  Highpoint Manor, Highpoint Addition, Kelly green, Stage West, Woodsetter Place, Green acre Gardens, Carlton acres, Vine ridge Estates, Ridings Acres.

Begins signing 4/24: Willow Wood, Regency Highpoint, Rolling Acres, Overland stage (round 2), E.R. Mingus survey

Please direct inquiries directed to: Shelley@carburante.com

If you have never signed a letter of intent in person with Carburante, you may now do so with the online version that goes directly to them for processing (click here). 

Dale Tries Makes Last Desparation Attempt "Steal the Deal" from Unified Property Owners

(posted February 25) 

You probably already know about the preemptive and predatory attempt of Dale Resources starting on February 12 to break up the successful efforts of SWAPO2 in unifying our area to get the best deal for our gas lease property. We are happy to report that over 1,800 people have signed up with SWAPO2 and Carrizo/Caburante as of February 25 in only one week of signing meetings. In the head-to-head competition against Dale Resources, our staff reports we are signing ten to twenty times as many homeowners in the area. On the first day of SWAPO2 signing, we observed only ten people signing the Dale lease, while over 350 signed the SWAPO2-endorsed lease with Carizzo/Carburante, with a $17,000 per acre signing bonus and 25% royalty with no cost deductions. Some have even gone back to Dale and asked for their signed leases back so they can sign with SWAPO2!

So we are not surprised that Dale is now making a last-ditch, desperate attempt to fool some of the remaining homeowners into signing their inferior lease by sending out yet another mailing on February 22: They matched the SWAPO2 signing bonus of $17,000, but they still deduct costs from your royalties and do not guarantee you are getting full acreage calculated beyond your survey measurements. The Dale and SWAPO2 leases are NOT the same, and Dale does not make it easy to find their lease contract on their website. They say nothing in their letter about environmental provisions, noise and traffic limitations, and the oversight audit power that SWAPO2 will continue to exercise AFTER the lease is signed.  In fact, the latest Dale letter says as little as possible about the lease, trying to entice you with the bonus cash only. Don't be fooled!

How can you trust a company that tried to stab your neighbors in the back? That promised to work with the neighborhood group a month ago but continues to do everything in its power to break us up into little sections, so they can control the lease provisions? They do not realize that for members of the Southwest Arlington and Kennedale community, it’s not just about “quick cash,” especially when it will end up being “less cash” after costs are cleverly deducted by Dale from your royalties.

And what about mistakes? How much influence will an individual have if Dale fails to keep its promises? With SWAPO2 you have a neighborhood group with over 3,000 members that will protect your rights and make sure the drillers obey the contract they have agreed to—not just on signing day, but years from now when it matters.

So from the volunteers and board members of SWAPO2, your neighbors who work only for the same bonus and royalties that you receive, we implore you to choose what’s best for the whole community, and in the long run will be better for your wallet, too.

Don't listen to this common false statement from Dale, which we witnessed at their signing meeting:

• "We represent the ONLY company that is authorized to drill in your area--Chesapeake. They already own all the possible drilling sites in the SWAPO2 area. Therefore, Carrizo will just the flip the lease and not drill." (repeatedly told by a Dale employees to several potential signers)
  

This is a blatant deception by Dale to get you to sign, and we have already seen Carrizo drilling sites working near our SWAPO2 area, and others sites to begin soon. Dale/Chesapeake does intend to drill in our area, that's true, but there are a dozen or more possible sites they do NOT own, and they only have ONE site actually scheduled to drill in 2008.

Don't let them just "notarize your signature" without details on your property, either. We've noticed Dale even tries to sign people in the Four Sevens area (along 287), which their sponsoring exploration company, Chesapeake, has specifically forbidden them to do.

Check out the SWAPO2 deal and make an informed choice with ALL the information, not just what one company wants you to hear.

Great News: SWAPO2 accepts $17,000/acre and 25% royalty bid from Carrizo/Carburante

The elected SWAPO2 bid committee has worked hard through the night and all day to accelerate the bidding process and find a "White Knight" to counter the premature and pedatory offer made by Dale Resources despite their assurances to work with our group.

The bid committee has approved an offer from Carrizo (represented by Carburante) with a bonus per acre payment of $17,000, more than the current Dale offer of $16,850, plus a 25% royalty WITHOUT any cost deductions such as found in the inferior Dale offer.

Having trouble reading the Dale lease at their FTP site? Why don't they publish it on a real website so people can actually read it before signing? What are they hiding? 

No problem reading our superior SWAPO2 lease by clicking here. 

Although Dale chose to violate the spirit and integrity of the neighborhood association bidding process, we had to realize they were in effect making their bid in advance, and to accept the fact that really we had three bids already on the table:

1. Four Sevens for $5,000 per acre, but only a very limited area of SWAPO2, and unethical claims to coerce people to sign at a lower price.

2. Dale for $16,850 per acre, but only about half of SWAPO2, and forbidden to market in the entire area due to their anti-competitive agreement with Chesapeake and Four Sevens. They also have a contract that reduces the ACTUAL royalty by deducting costs, and does not have many other protective features in the original SWAPO and SWAPO2 lease

3. Carrizo is offering more dollars per acre than Dale for the signing bonus, $17,000, and is also adhering to all contract and expense provisions as rigorously enforced by the SWAPO2 committee.

The committee also had to take into account that Carrizo has been honest and lived up to their statements through the relationship, and Dale has broken promises and directly attempted to split up our group by timing a mailing on the day of our meeting, despite promises to the contrary. We feel that Four Sevens and Dale are part of a price-fixing scheme by Chesapeake to gain control of all exploration in our area and keep prices and environmental protections low. We also feel that waiting any longer for more bidders risks losing a large segment of our area to Dale and their premature offer.

Therefore, all members of the bid committee have expressed a desire to move forward and accept Carrizo as the winning bidder in a process that is necessarily streamlined to meet the threat of Dale to split up and cherry-pick the SWAPO2 area.

SWAPO2 and Carrizo have hand-delivered several thousand offering letters to all the streets in the new, expanded SWAPO2 (see new map). W

What's the difference between SWAPO and SWAPO2? (January 15)

It depends on where you actually own property. If you are east of Kelly Elliot and/or south of Sublett Road, you are probably in the original SWAPO area and should go to their website by clicking here.

If your property is west of Kelly Elliot and north of Sublett, you are probably in our SWAPO2 area (see map). If you are southwest of Highway 287 in Kennedale, you may also be in our SWAPO2 area and are probably being solicited with the same below-market offers as southwest Arington residents. Your city limits do not matter when it comes to mineral rights, only your proximity to the future drilling site (see map).