What should I need to know as a local city Mayor if our city council ever wants to lease our mineral rights to a driller/producer?
We own ~1,300 acres of land, and probably all of the mineral rights underneath, in and around the town of Nocona, Texas in Montague County (which is probably Barnett Shale, but our North Field area touches our property and has been shallow conventional wells for a century).
Do cities ever do such leasing? There are probably “landmines” involved for cities, right??
One area that our local voters would almost certainly support oil drilling is at our now-covered landfill.
yes, the DFW area has several municipalities that have leased municipal lands. I would start with Forth Worth leadership
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Welcome to the forum!
With today’s horizontal drilling, many municipalities have wells going under their cities. A few are Oklahoma City, Midland, DFW, etc. Who gets to lease depends upon who actually owns the mineral acres. Sometimes, the city does, but sometimes the families or entities own them. Owning the surface acreage does not guarantee that one owns the mineral rights as they may have been severed decades ago.
Engaging a good oil and gas attorney will be in your best interests as they can walk you through the details for your situation. At this point you could hire a land man for a lesser fee to see what mineral right the city owns and then you would have that knowledge once leasing inquiries start.
Looks like there are already older wells under the cemetery and golf course on the west and south side. At the moment, there are no nearby new leases or permits.
Here is a map of your area from the Texas RRC site.
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The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) can also help with information. They have a Texas Chapter and the president is quite an expert on mineral rights. www.naro-us.org
