I'm new to oil and gas leasing and new to this forum. I apologize if my questions have answered elsewhere. If so, please direct me where I need to go.
A short history of how I came to be here. A few years ago I was deeded a portion of an estate that contained mineral rights acreage in North Dakota and Montana. At the time that I was deeded the properties the Montana property had already been leased by the trust department of the bank handling the estate. The North Dakota property was not leased, but I have leased most of the acreage there myself a couple of years ago.
The lease for the property in Montana ran out in June of this year. I had a call a couple of months ago from someone interested in leasing the property. We spoke about terms and I expected to get paperwork from him in the mail. I called him back a few weeks later and he explained that there was a Continuous Drilling Clause in the previous lease. Honestly I had no idea what terms were called for in the lease because I was never given this information when the property was deeded.
I have many questions to ask but I'll stick to a couple for now. How can I find out who the lease holder was and who is drilling on the property? How long can an oil company drill on a property that is no longer under lease?
I great appreciate any insights that I can glean from this group.
Brian:
You can google the "Million Dollar Way" website and scroll down until you see "Eser" in the right hand column, click on this and enter your Township/Range/Section and by moving your mouse over the dots, you will be able to see the well information (Operator Name/Lease Name, etc.). Once a well is drilled on your property, the well is operated by the operator (or can be sold to another operator), until the well is plugged. This depends on the wording in your lease as some leases have "Pugh Clauses" whereas the operator is restricted to production in a certain zone thus allowing the mineral owner to lease other productive zones. You might want to read other posts dealing with this matter to better understand. You didn't state what area in MT or ND your minerals are located but some areas are "hot" and some is located outside the drilling action.
I’ll take a look at that website. I don’t know much about the property description; much of it seems like gibberish to me. My property is in Williams Co. ND and Roosevelt Co. MT.
Brian:
All you need to know is the Township/Range/Section of you mineral interests in order to use the Eser mapping system.
Brian Thornton said:
I'll take a look at that website. I don't know much about the property description; much of it seems like gibberish to me. My property is in Williams Co. ND and Roosevelt Co. MT.