Natural gas and oil are separate from the mineral rights (coal, limestone, etc.). Minerals can be quantified, and therefore can be taxed. There is no way to definitively assess whether or not there is natural gas or oil under a property and in what quantities it exists. Therefore it cannot be taxed. They were separated many years ago. Most people don’t own their coal rights, most people DO own their gas rights. If they do not own it, it SHOULD say in their deed “interests in all of the underlying gas and oil are hereby excepted and reserved to John Q. Jackoff” or something similar to that… but attorneys are lazy idiots and if someone didn’t reference that exception and reservation one of the times the deed was transferred, it’s likely that it woudnt be referenced in any deed after that.
Kriebel doesn’t do CBM as far as I know. As I understood your post Kriebel is running title, not your parents, correct? If that is the case, you don’t need to worry about it. Kriebel is a well established company and they know what they’re doing. Also, it’s just for them to cover their own ass. If it comes out in the wash that your parents don’t own their oil and gas rights, there’s nothing they can do about it and they wouldn’t be on the hook for anything…assuming they didn’t sign a lease in which they guarantee their title (the verbiage in the lease to look for would probably be akin to "Lessors hereby warrant generally title to the Property "). you might want to look into that if you’re trying to be anal, but someone challenging gas ownership is exceptionally rare, and them winning the challenge is even moreso uncommon. Once the lease is signed, the landowner’s involvement is very minimal. I could have given you a SHITLOAD of pointers and verbiage you could have asked to have written into the lease that would have been beneficial to them, but if it’s signed, it’s a done deal.