My wife has a small interest in four wells in Montague County. She signed a lease back in 2009 with EOG. Later that year she received a division order from EOG showing her interest in these four wells. Since you can check on the Texas Railroad site, we noticed that these wells started producing oil and gas in 2010. We called EOG and asked why we were not receiving any royalty payments. We were first told that there were not enough money in the account to pay. Later we were told that there was a law suit currently on these wells and no one had been paid. We checked again and this time they claimed a ownership issue. Eog sent us documentation to complete, which we did and returned to them. That was over a month ago and we still have not received any payments. There is now money in the account but they refuse to pay.
I have read the same issues with EOG on this site. It looks like they operate this way. There is not enough money in the account to worry about hiring an attorney.
She has interest in Roger Mills county in Oklahoma with another producing company. They are paying each month.
She would never sign a lease with EOG again.
Since EOG has refused to pay, I would think EOG breached the lease contract and division order that she signed>
Any suggestions.
Richard
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Richard,
Keep calling them. We have some similar to yours and we received recently for some months back in March 2011.
They also have E-Mail addresses. We still have more coming. It usually takes about two or three months to get the check after all of the paper work is OK.
If they aren't paying, I think they have broken the lease. And if they have, throw the bums out. That goes for Pioneer too. Seriously, where is Marvin Zindler or some elected official willing to stand up to these people? We are being taken advantage of while these companies steal our oil and gas. Theft is theft. Just the same as stealing the truck in your driveway late at night. As long as the proper procedure is followed, I think the Sheriff's office would be legally bound to help you throw them out.
Montague County should be helping us. They are sending out tax bills for money we haven't received. Someone reported this income to the county. Is it possible the oil companies are saying we have been paid? Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think we can be taxed today on money we might make next month or next year. We are supposed to be taxed on money that has been paid to us in the past. Has anyone discussed this with the county? There is something seriously wrong here. If the county knows how much you should have been paid by an oil company; how can that same oil company then claim there are ownership issues and they don't know who to pay?
The oil companies have us over a barrel because we don't have pockets deep enough to fight a legal battle. Is there no ombudsman or someone on our side? The oil companies have stables of attorneys. In theory, isn't the State Attorney General supposed to be on the side of the public? Has anyone tried to get that individual involved? Or maybe Montague County should take this whole mess to the AG?
We don't have the money to fight legally. That leaves the high court of public opinion. We could put up some websites and mount a serious facebook campaign to try and shame them into holding up their end of the deal. A 20 second spot on CNN or Fox showing a senior citizen who has been victimized by big oil might get us all paid. There must be an investigative journalist left out there who would love a nice meaty scandal? Just tossing the Enron name out there should be enough to start a feeding frenzy. I'm not talking about anything libelous, just a bunch of people stating only the facts. Let the public come to it's own conclusion.
I wonder if it would have any effect if we all wrote to the elected officials in Montague County? Also I hope everyone is protesting those tax bills on money we haven't been paid. What else can/could/should we do? Come up with some better ideas.
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Richard,
I have done a great deal of checking with other more knowledgeable people in the industry. You will find many of these people on these forums.
To the best of my knowledge you cannot break the lease. If they do not pay eventually you can sue for non payment of a debt but the lease is still in existance. I think you will find this to be correct but ask others with more knowledge than I. Ask Buddy Cotten or R.W. Kennedy for example.
I think that you probably have completed the paperwork needed to get your checks. It may take up to three months after you get all of the paperwork in.
I would continue to call them about every week. This has eventually worked for us.