A very interesting situation. OK, I’ll bite, and will take a “glass half full” approach.
First, you need to absolutely make sure your field crew is well incentivized to maintain those wells, optimize that production, and reduce costs in a safe and environmentally compliant way. They are the key to having good returns on your investment. You need people who know those wells’ history off the top of their head, who know all the vendors in the area and have them on speed dial (and who to avoid), and who can put eyes on each producing well at least once a week (even if there’s automation/SCADA) and each shut-in well at least once a month.
Second, read the above paragraph one more time. I can’t stress this enough.
RBLs are typically run through the larger banks who have an engineer on staff to review the reserves for accuracy and due diligence. Expect to get ~90% credit for producing well value and near nothing for anything non-producing. (You’d need to have more in place for drilling and workover plans to get credit beyond that.)
Private equity is the other method, but you’re unlikely to get that as a one-man show with no prior success history. There’s a lot of competition there. Unless you’re a frat guy, went to TCU, or have family money. Then the sky is the limit!
Federal minerals are leased to the operator and work roughly similar to privately owned minerals. You just pay different people. Either way, you need to make sure you know the lease terms for each owner you’re paying, because each one can be (and usually is) unique. Fed leases are usually pretty forgiving for non-production but private ones can vary wildly.
Surface owners are important to keep happy just because they can really be allies for the operator and a massive headache when they’re unhappy. I’m not sure Wyoming-specific prices, but damages for a typical new well pad is usually $100k-300k and depends on what’s happening on the surface and how much you need that specific piece of land. Yes, they have to give you access to your minerals, but they don’t have to help you save money.
But it doesn’t sound like you’re drilling, so your surface costs should just be things like road maintenance and site reclamation. That part will all depend on the state of the current locations. Many areas are going to make you clean a site to the point that grass will grow over where the well site was, so consider that as a hurdle for cleanliness.
I think your RBL can be used for all of that? But will depend on your bank’s terms. Using RBLs for drilling is common, and everything else is usually required when drilling.
Final words of wisdom: Drilling a well is [relatively] easy. Not screwing up the reservoir once you get the drill bit to the right place (aka, the completion) is the hard part. That’s where all the disciplines intersect. It’s incredibly hard to fix a well that was completed poorly. A lot of wells produce economically despite a poor completion, but wells with that much potential are harder and harder to come by. A small operator will be scraping the bottom of the barrel for prospects, so the completion will matter more.