NORWICH – A side-benefit once touted by natural gas companies as an enticement to leasing your mineral rights to them is now being considered unsafe.

Norse Energy Inc. alerted more than a dozen leasees two weeks ago that it would no longer permit property owners to run private gas lines from the producing on wells on their property to power their homes, farms and businesses free of charge. The company offered, instead, to assume the cost of converting the homeowners to propane as well as the cost of the propane going forward.

“We’ve gotten away from the direct connects due to safety issues associated with being physically tied into a producing well,” said Regulatory Compliance Department Spokesman Dennis Holbrook.

Norse Energy has 150,000 acres under lease in Chenango and Madison counties. It is unknown how many actual leases that acreage represents, and the number of property owners who have already connected to their wells or had planned to in the future. The “more than a dozen” leases Holbrook referred to are in both Chenango and Madison counties.

The company released its statement because, according to Holbrook, some of those contacted felt they “were losing something of value.”

“They are getting the equivalent value. We are not the big, bad, gas company they may think we are. Obviously, we are doing this because it’s the right thing to do, not because we have any financial gain out of it,” he said.

Chenango County’s economic development consultant to the natural gas industry confirmed that Norse Energy is concerned about safety.

“That’s what they claim, that having a gas line directly connected to the well, if something were to go wrong, that Norse ultimately has deeper pockets to go after,” said Steven Palmatier, of Walking Ridge Consulting LLC in Preston.

Palmatier reserved further comment until receipt of a report on the matter. He said Norse Energy will provide more details to the Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee.

Preston resident Evelyn Blood said she received both a visit and a letter from Norse Energy in late January advising her of the change.

“I don’t know much about it, or why... . They said for safety reasons,” she said.

Blood said she paid to have a gas line buried from the well to her home and to convert her fireplace with the proper insert. “It was expensive,” she said.