Bill, if you are force pooled, yours would be a "carried interest", the operator drills the well and pays for your part out of his own pocket. For doing this, not knowing that the well will be profitable and that the operator will get his money back, the state will allow the operator to impose a 50% of actual cost of drilling and completing risk penalty which may only be recovered from production. You never owe anything out of pocket until you have a working interest receiving 100%, less cost of production.
You receive 16% from the first barrel and 84% goes to pay for your part of the well and pay off the 50% of actual cost of drilling and completing of the well penalty. Many people look at this penalty and think 50%, that's huge, but really it's not. By my calculations, it would be about $29,300 per well X 50% just under $44,000. Sounds like alot of money, and it is. You have to remember that 2/3 of that is for work done and physical property. You own that part of the well, not just the minerals. Your acres might have to produce 60 barrels of oil each to pay off that amount. Compared to the poor well you already have, which has already produced 84.3 barrels per acre and probably has decades of life left in it, does that sound so bad? Especially when we are talking about hundreds of barrels per acre over a period of decades.
Operators do not drill wells for a 50% penalty, they expect a much greater return than that, 300% or more is not unusual. Lets do the math 50% goes into 300% 6 times, or 1/6 which is what operators offer mineral owners frequently, so by not leasing, you basically trade paychecks with an oil company on your acres. You make what the oil company would have made, or more. Believe me, they don't like it one bit.
The most terrible things of all is that it's at no, out of pocket risk to you. In fact, you get paid 75% or more of what everyone who did lease gets, until your well pays out and recovers the penalty.
It would also keep your options open. When you lease, since they already have found oil, your options will be severly truncated, sell or keep the acres or possibly sell your royalty stream for a term. If you don't lease, you will probably have the opportunity in the future, I still get offers from the operator, I wonder why that is? It's because they are barely going to make any money off my acres. I could participate in future wells, I could enter into a farm out agreement with a partner for future wells. After my wells pay out I would sell a working interest in a single wellbore, retaining my mineral rights and a royalty and so on, and so on. You have all those rights right now as long as they have not sent the owner a lease agreement that was refused AND sent an AFE well proposal which was also refused or which lapsed after 30 days.
Yes, being non-consent you would miss out on the bonus, yes you will spend a few years receiving 75% of what others receive but you will make that up quickly when you start receiving 400% more than being leased would pay you.
Why do you think they pay a bonus? It's the enticement to do something that is against your best interest.
It's up to you, you can be makeing what the oil company would have made in a few years and be paid 75% or more what everyone who leased gets in royalty while you wait or you can lease, take the bonus and give the oil company 80%. Put another way, you have 10 acres, do you want to be paid a bonus and for the oil under 2 acre or no bonus and for the oil under 10 acres after expenses? I think you will have to be a tough and skillful negotiator to get $5,000 per acre, which is roughly 60 42 gallon drums per acre of oil. Imagine an acre with 60 drums on it, there is still alot of empty space left. You already have a poor well that produced 83 per acre and is still going with decades to go. Can they buy you out with your own money?