Pennsylvania is where the American oil industry began. Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well near Titusville in 1859, and the state has been producing oil and gas ever since. The Marcellus Shale boom in the 2000s brought modern horizontal drilling to a state with a 160-year legacy of conventional wells, and the combination creates unique challenges for mineral owners.

"Minerals" Doesn't Always Include Oil and Gas

This is the most important difference between Pennsylvania and other oil states. Under Pennsylvania law, the word "minerals" in a deed does not automatically include oil and gas. This is known as the Dunham Rule, first established in 1882 and reaffirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2013 in Butler v. Charles Powers Estate. The Court held that "natural gas and oil simply are not minerals" and that a reservation of "minerals" creates a rebuttable presumption that it was not intended to include oil or natural gas.

If your deed says "reserving all minerals," you may not own the oil and gas rights. You need to see specific language like "reserving all oil, gas, and other minerals" or "reserving all subsurface rights including oil and gas."

This means title examination in Pennsylvania requires careful reading of the exact deed language, not just looking for the word "minerals."

The Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus Shale formation underlies much of Pennsylvania and is one of the largest natural gas formations in the United States. Horizontal drilling in the Marcellus has produced enormous volumes of natural gas, and leasing activity has been intense in the northern and southwestern parts of the state.

If your minerals are in a Marcellus-active area, they may be significantly more valuable than you think, even if there's no current production on your specific tract. Proximity to existing wells and pipeline infrastructure affects value.

Legacy Wells

Pennsylvania has a legacy well problem unlike any other state. Hundreds of thousands of wells were drilled before modern permitting requirements existed (the state's orphan well plugging program, funded in part by Act 13's Marcellus Legacy Fund, addresses some of this legacy). Many of these wells are unplugged, undocumented, and their exact locations are unknown.

The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) maintains a database of permitted wells, but it doesn't include pre-regulation wells. If your minerals are in an area with 19th or early 20th-century drilling activity, there may be old wells on or near your property that aren't in any database.

This matters for new drilling because operators must account for legacy wellbores when planning horizontal wells, and it can affect the viability and cost of new development.

No PLSS

Pennsylvania was one of the original thirteen colonies and does not use the Public Land Survey System. Land descriptions use metes and bounds (compass directions and distances), lot and block numbers from recorded plat maps, or references to named surveys and warrants.

This makes deed research more complex than in PLSS states. You can't simply look up a section-township-range. Instead, you need to trace the specific deed description, which often references landmarks, adjacent property owners, or survey monuments.

County Records

Pennsylvania has 67 counties, each with its own Recorder of Deeds office. There's no statewide portal. Some counties (Allegheny, Washington, Susquehanna) offer online deed search, but many require in-person visits, especially for older records.

Mineral severances in Pennsylvania date back to the 1860s. Tracing a chain of title may require searching through 150+ years of deed records.

Act 13 and Impact Fees

Pennsylvania does not have a traditional severance tax. Instead, it imposes an impact fee on unconventional (Marcellus/Utica) wells under Act 13 of 2012. For 2025, the fee is $59,700 for a horizontal well in its first year, declining over a 15-year schedule. This fee is paid by the producer and is not deducted from your royalty. The PUC distributed $164.5 million in impact fees to Pennsylvania communities for calendar year 2024.

Key Takeaways for Pennsylvania Mineral Owners

MinRight works for Pennsylvania's metes-and-bounds descriptions just as well as for PLSS states. Enter your property details, attach your deeds, and track payments from Marcellus wells. For more on how deed language affects your ownership, see our guide on reading deeds for mineral reservations.

Also see our guides for Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, and Kansas.