Antero - explanation of royalty payments

[midlogregg]

I would appreciate help from this forum. I have a couple of basic questions to start with.

• both my father and his unmarried sister have passed away within the past two years. following my grandfather’s death in 1983, they have been receiving identical royalty payments and paying identical taxes to Tyler County. Suddenly in 2020, my aunt started receiving a large increase in her royalties from Antero because they opened new wells on the property which had the inherited mineral rights. My father never received that increase. Can the forum speculate on why he never received that increase?

• on this same acreage, my aunt’s increase in royalty payments were associated with 6 different wells but there were several additional wells that were recently drilled by Antero which didn’t pay her any royalties. Can that make any sense?

• to my knowledge, they (my father and aunt) were never a party to any written lease agreement. Obviously, someone else was over all of the years that they owned these rights and especially now with the new drilling by Antero. Any advice on how I can go about tracking down that person and the lease? I do have a fairly good handle on the family tree since my greatgrandfather deeded those rights to his 5 sons in 1933.

Thanks to anyone who can give me advice.

[Chris_Wells]

Greetings! You may want to record an affidavit of heirship with Tyler County showing your father’s relationship and send a copy to Antero. Antero can then send you a Division Order once they determine you are eligible for the royalties. You probably have a NPRI, non participating royalty interest which is why you have never seen or signed a lease.

[Khaled_Helmi]

@midlogregg You could be NPRI or you could actually be Held by Production (HBP). If you’re HBP that essentially means an old lease (could be from 100 years ago) is holding the whole property under that original lease. Not much you can do but it would explain why you dont have any leases but are getting paid.

As for your wells, I’d need more details, but essentially its possible you were included in one unit and not another. Antero is usually pretty good on that, but I’ve had issues with operators before when they rework a well they dont include previous folks (in this case it was accidental). More details would be needed to really know… (parcel, leasehold, units/wells, etc)