RE: News"as natural gas prices improve"...that's not going to happen for a very long time.
Even if they got all of the land back, this isn't a big deal because natural gas is worthless and 2.5 sections is not much. The government may allow them to drill 8 wells/section but they shouldn't be drilling that many from a depletion point of view anyway.
More smoke and mirrors...if they got a bunch of money they would have been announcing Bakken drilling or Endeavour work.