Companies have bid millions of dollars to drill for oil and natural gas beneath several state-owned lands in West Virginia.
On Friday, the state Department of Commerce opened bids for Marcellus shale fracking under several tracts of land.
Antero ResourceFish s bid about $8,100 per acre, or $2.3 million total, for mineral rights under Jug Wildlife Management Area in Tyler County. Jay-Bee Production Company bid between $5,000 and about $16,300 per acre for different parts of the same land.
Noble Energy bid about $5,100 per acre, or $685,000 total, to drill under Fish Creek and adjacent land in Marshall County.
StatOil USA Onshore Properties Inc. bid $9,000 per acre to drill under part of the Ohio River in Wetzel County.
The state requires an additional 20 percent royalty on what’s extracted.