Yeah brokers “landman” for oil, always paint the rosiest pictures. When your income is based on sales, you have to get people to buy/sell.
I agree 100%. Every single financial model is wrong as soon as it gets underwritten. However, it is still good practice to understand modeling. Hell, every professional investment is dictated by one, especially PE and VC (which is what drilling a well is!).
I have heard of horror stories of royalty owners not getting checks. It seems like the reasons varied from outright fraud where companies simply did not pay, to post-production expenses eating into any profit.