My mother has received an offer for a 3-yr lease of her mineral rights in Cleveland County, OK. I’ve been looking into this all night and the one thing eluding me is how to look up current lease activity in the area, and whether the offer is fair or if I should attempt to re-negotiate for better terms. They are offering 3/16 royalty with $50 per acre upfront, or 1/8 royalty with $100 per acre upfront. In my searching on the county clerk’s website I see that my mother’s 2 brothers signed (what I assume are) lease agreements with this same company about 4 years ago. Both brothers are now deceased and I am not in contact with their extended families so I am not sure if they were offered renewals or anything. I don’t see any wells located in the area on the OCC website, but the company has a few wells in other sections close by. This is Cleveland County 8-7N-1E. Also this letter adds ‘I.M’ at the end, and the leases listed for her brothers all have 2 directions after them, i.e. N NE, E NW, W NE, NE SW. Both brother’s records list these 4 directional thingies. Does this mean my mom’s acres are smack dab in the middle? She has about 7 acres. A state report from 2006 that I found indicates there is oil and gas activity in the section and there were some notable wells in the upper left side of the county in 2006. I couldn’t find anything more recent than that. Any advice on what to do next would be much appreciated. I’m new to all this but I want to help my mom make an informed decision and protect her rights. I’ve looked into the NARO but the membership price seems a bit steep when there is no guarantees as to actually receiving anything more than the upfront offers of $50 per acre or $100. I know the money is in the ground, not in the upfront but my mom is difficult to reason with so I have to get as much knowledge on this as I can. Thanks so much!
Allison, have you gone to the Oklahoma Corporation Bureau? http://www.occ.state.ok.us/
Under Divisions Oil & Gas, you can select data base. It has alink for new wells in the past 2 years you can search by township and range or narrow it down further and see what activity is going on.
Under Data files, I found a file with probably all the wells listed file; W27base.zip. It is a very large file and took a long time to search.
Oklahoma Land Records can be searched at: http://okcountyrecords.com/
using that link add county, use drop down menu under type and click O&G Lease then fill in location and you can view O&G Leases in that area. It may or may not give full details but gives an idea of activity.
Anyone else got tips on navigating the data there please share! Mike M
Also have interest in some mineral rights in Cleveland county,received a letter with a offer of 250. dollars per acre plus 3/16 th royalty's for a 3 year lease,they want to drill a test well,a surface hole and a bottom hole,,i have know idea what this is all about,the company is Finley Resources,INC.being represented by Todco Properties,anyone know anything about this company.