Should I be concerned about buying a piece of property in upstate NY without mineral rights?

You'll want to find out who is retaining the mineral rights to the property in question and if possible, what the likelihood of them needing your property for a surface operation would by (if they already have a drilling pad on adjacent property then they may not ever need to put one on yours).

When purchasing property, it is quite possible that the current owner can't sell you the mineral rights because they never owned them in the first place (i.e. they were already sold off to an oil & gas company by a previous owner).

It's unlikely that an oil & gas company would try to build a surface operation on your property without first consulting you and trying to come to some sort of amicable agreement for the disturbance that would be caused. Indeed, there may already be clauses in the mineral rights agreement that protect you from surface operations to some extent.

There is a lot of useful information here. Some excerpts for ease of reference:

A task known as running title (the mineral title) is the only sure way of determining ownership with any measure of authority. By having a qualified person run (ie, examine) title, you may determine whether or not the mineral rights have been severed through a prior mineral conveyance.

A typical footprint needed for drilling, completion, and subsequent production is generally in the 3 to 10 acre range.

The following are samples of different types of surface damage clauses which could be added to a lease (provided they are appropriate for a specific situation):

• No Surface Operations
• Surface Damage Payment
• Location approval
• No Drilling Within XXX Feet
• Water Related Clauses
• Land Reclamation

see the article for more details of each of these clauses.