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Report: FBI probing EnerVest lease disputed by Ohio landowner

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Report: FBI probing EnerVest lease disputed by Ohio landowner

The FBI is looking into a "held by production" dispute involving an eastern Ohio landowner, private equity firm EnerVest Ltd. and Utica Shale-focused producer Ascent Resources LLC, The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 26.

The Crislip family signed a deal with a local driller in 1980 that granted drilling rights to 342 acres of land as long as the property produces oil or gas. The lease was acquired by EnerVest, which owns a controlling stake in publicly traded well owner EV Energy Partners LP, in 2009. It then sold 152 acres covered by the lease, but not the well itself, as part of a drilling-rights package to Ascent for about $285 million in 2013, the report said.

Ascent filed a civil case against landowner Matt Crislip in 2015 for access to the property, and Crislip made a counterclaim against EnerVest, alleging that the 37-year-old natural gas well on his property had been dead for years but EnerVest misled him into believing that it was still producing so it could retain control of the rights to drill the Utica Shale below and thereby profit from the sale to Ascent, the report said.

The case is in Guernsey County’s Court of Common Pleas and has been scheduled for a jury trial in March after Guernsey County Judge Daniel Padden denied EnerVest’s request to dismiss Crislip's claims earlier in 2017, the Journal reported.

The FBI sent a letter to Crislip enrolling him in its Victims Assistance Program, noting that he had been "identified... as a possible victim of a crime" and that investigators have been interested since at least February, the report said. No charges have been filed.