Daniel Gilbert. “Underfoot, Out of Reach: A series on the conflicts over Southwest Virginia’s natural gas wealth.” Virginia Tri-Cities.com. (online).

Beneath the surface of seven Southwest Virginia counties lie pools of natural gas worth more than a billion dollars a year. Some of this gas belongs to landowners forced by the state to lease their mineral rights to private energy corporations to develop. But instead of putting royalties into the pockets of mineral owners, the state funnels thousands of dollars every month into an escrow fund that royalty owners cannot monitor or access without clearing enormous legal hurdles.

While the system has vastly expanded production of natural gas in Virginia, it has devoted scant resources to ensuring that companies make the required payments into escrow, which in recent years has ballooned to more than $24 million. The result is that companies can produce gas for years without ever filing the necessary paperwork for royalties to be escrowed, and virtually no one notices that hundreds of individual accounts in escrow each month receive no deposits even though the corresponding gas wells are producing gas, a Bristol Herald Courier investigation finds.

(Editor’s note: Daniel Gilbert won a 2010 Pulitzer for the paper, Bristol (VA) Herald Courier. He recently joined the staff of the Washington Post)

Daniel Gilbert

Washington, D.C.

Reporter covering the business of medicine

Education: University of Chicago, BA in International Studies

Daniel Gilbert joined The Washington Post in 2022 and writes about the business of medicine. He previously spent seven years as an investigative reporter for the Seattle Times, and before that covered business and energy for the Wall Street Journal in Houston. As a staff writer for the Bristol Herald Courier in Bristol, Va., his reporting on Virginia’s mismanagement of natural-gas royalties received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Professional Affiliations: Investigative Reporters & Editors, Asian American Journalists Association

Languages spoken in addition to English: Spanish, French

See: “The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Public Service”

For the work of Daniel Gilbert in illuminating the murky mismanagement of natural-gas royalties owed to thousands of land owners in southwest Virginia, spurring remedial action by state lawmakers.

Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University (left), presents the 2010 Public Service prize to (l-r) J. Todd Foster, Daniel Gilbert and Carl Esposito of the Bristol Herald Courier.

All the works below in this series can be accessed here:

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/bristol-va-herald-courier

December 6, 2009: Part 1: The money prison
December 6, 2009: Forced pooling: how it works
December 7, 2009: Part 2: No right of refusal
December 8, 2009: Part 3: The Supreme Court weighs in – and nothing happens
December 9, 2009: Part 4: The coal industry fights back
December 10, 2009: Part 5: After crisis, escrow fund sheds value
December 11, 2009: Part 6: The $24 million question
December 12, 2009: Part 7: An audit long delayed
December 13, 2009: Part 8: Sue, split or do nothing
December 16, 2009: Gas escrow fund to be audited
December 16, 2009: Series on escrow fund draws praise, criticism
December 21, 2009: Natural gas and the future
December 27, 2009: Corporations correct balances in gas royalty escrow fund
December 27, 2009: Legislators looking into escrow solutions
December 6, 2009: Series underscores vital watchdog role of newspapers
December 13, 2009: Changes needed to gas, oil act

Dig Deeper:Resources and links for more information

Do I have money in escrow? How to use our database and determine if you may have money in escrow.

View the members of and contact information for the Virginia Gas and Oil Board

Graphics: