Board considers drilling gas well

The gas bill for the district in March was $80,000.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- The rising cost of natural gas has prompted Hermitage School District to look for another source to heat at least one of its buildings.
The school board is considering having a gas well drilled on school property, said Superintendent Dr. Louis Mastrian.
The board has asked for bids from drillers and will open them April 23.
The plan is to secure a source of free gas and/or a royalty revenue to defray heating expenses, Mastrian said.
The well would be owned by the district, but the driller would incur all drilling, production and maintenance costs.
The location: The only area where there is sufficient space to drill a well is near Delahunty Middle School at 419 N. Hermitage Road, Mastrian said. A location is available adjacent to some practice fields near the school, he said.
"We could at least heat one building," he said, suggesting it would be possible to run a line from the well to Delahunty.
Mastrian said the board decided to look at having a well drilled because of the costs of heating school buildings.
The March gas bill for the district was $80,000, he said, noting that the heating budget for the entire school year was only $110,000. The district has already reached the $210,000 mark, he said.
Hermitage isn't the only local school district to look at drilling its own gas well.
Sharon City School District did it in late 1999, getting a well placed between the high school and Tiger Stadium.
Sharon had planned to drill two, with the second near its West Hill Elementary School, but decided not to drill at the latter location because that school was being renovated and expanded at the time.
Substantial royalties: Sharon wasn't able to run a line from its well to the high school because of bedrock in the area, but the driller is providing royalties equal to 400,000 cubic feet of gas a year, said James Wolf, Sharon business manager, noting that he recently deposited a $1,700 royalty check for January.
Hermitage and Sharon are part of the Mercer County Gas Consortium, a group of schools, municipalities and private enterprises that banded together about 12 years ago to buy gas in bulk at wellhead prices rather than from a retail supplier, which would be National Fuel Gas in this area.
The consortium saved its members $270,000 in gas costs in the 1997-98 winter heating season, with Hermitage realizing $30,680 in savings and Sharon saving $36,316.
Savings two years ago totaled $185,000 but dropped to $125,000 last year, Wolf said.
Numbers are not in for this heating season yet. "We're still ahead of National Fuel [prices]," Wolf said.
Mastrian said Hermitage hasn't made a commitment to drill a well but wants to look at costs and problems before deciding.