Estimated $1 billion in natural gas sits beneath contested acreage
A unanimous Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in May 2025 that the Proctor family trust still holds the mineral rights beneath state game lands managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, according to reporting by Stephen Caruso of Spotlight PA for the Associated Press. A Pennsylvania law passed this summer was reported to address the aftermath of the ruling.
Mineral rights — the right to extract coal, oil, gas, or ore from beneath the land — sit below surface rights such as the rights to build, cut wood, or hunt. The Proctor family trust says its ancestors acquired the mineral rights more than a century ago, when the mineral estate was severed from the surface rights. The Proctors have waged the legal fight with the state for more than a decade, according to the reporting.
Estimates of the disputed acreage diverge sharply, ranging from 60,000 acres to more than one million acres depending on which party is asked. An estimated $1 billion in Pennsylvania natural gas sits beneath the contested acreage.