I own a couple hundred acres in Montague county without mineral rights. The property has a dozen or so spent wells and a lot of junk around, but not bad. I would like to buy the mineral rights back and clean the place up and keep folks off it. Is that something that is done much?
If so, is there a range of prices? That would give me some idea of feasibility.
Thanks.
If it were a single owner of the mineral rights it could be possible. If the mineral rights have been gone for a couple decades, you might have to track down 30 or more owners and even then you would want to get every single one to sell as the mineral estate is the dominant estate and you don't want to try to block the development of someone's minerals as that would probably be very expensive and likely a losing proposition if an operator really wants to drill there. Not saying you shouldn't try but I will say to keep your eyes open and be prepared.
On the other hand, if you owned half the mineral rights and you would be drill site and wellbore tract and you refused to sign a lease, presuming a successful well were drilled, you would own a large portion of the well and an operator might try to coerce you, but they couldn't force you to sign a lease and they may decide they won't drill if hypothetically 1/8th ownership in total production of the well would be yours after the well recovered costs of drilling and completion. If they hit a good one, they may face exactly the same thing again on the next one. Very sub optimal from an operator's point of view.
First things first, find out who and how many own the rights. I would contact the owners of the rights personally, in writing to alleviate any suspicions that you are a mineral acquisition company trying to pull a fast one. Cost will be whatever the market will bear and may not be for sale at any price within reason. Good luck.
If the wells have been abandoned, you could possibly own the equipment and flow lines.
Thank you for responding. My ex-neighbor and his family have the min-rights. When I bought this parcel in the nineties I could have bought the rights for, as I recall, 4-5 hundred thousand. I wanted cattle grazing. Now I want to improve the topside and sell at the market. The more I know before I start this ball rolling the better. God Bless...