In its rapid ascent to become a top leaseholder in the Marcellus Shale, Chesapeake Energy came to West Virginia and put into play a strategy designed to narrow landowner rights and expand company control over all phases of the drilling cycle.

The Oklahoma City-based energy giant absorbed the region -- which sits above the natural gas rock formation -- in just a few months, driving down landowners' bargaining power, and in some cases preventing leases from expiring, locking landowners into those contracts indefinitely.

Chesapeake Energy moved into Ohio County through a quiet 2010 land swap with Range Resources -- unknown even to the landowners whose property rights changed hands.