My wife and I have non-executive mineral interest in 5 sections in Glasscock County, TX. The interest in each section is exactly the same; that’s easily discoverable via the mineral deed and chain of heir-ship. No company has ever figured our decimal interest incorrrectly in any section, from the 1980’s, when the properties were first developed, with the exception of one time, but they corrected it before it came to us in division orders, and there was no problem.
We have a situation in two of those sections that really stumps us. The decimal interest has been figured incorrectly in them, for new horizontal wells that transverse two of our sections. We caught this error in December 2018, before the division orders went out to everyone else, because a DO analyst sent ours to us in an email, prematurely and in error, in response to our inquiry about when we could expect them. We informed her at the time that the decimal interest was incorrect. We expected that this would be corrected by the time the division orders arrived in the mail, but they were not.
The reason we expected that the correction would be made quickly is because this company, Parsley Energy, is producing in one of our other sections, along with two other companies. Parsley has it correct in that section, as do the other two companies. The interest we own is the same in all 5 sections, and the royalty on the leases is the same (25%), so the decimal interest should be the same for these newly developed sections as it is in the other one that Parsley is operating. Also, we are in contact with another interest owner in our section, not of our family, but of another family; our great-grandfathers had been in business together and each family has interest in the properties. This other interest owner has confirmed for us that his decimal interest in these new sections is exactly the same as it is in the other section…as it should be.
We’re having a lot of difficulty getting this corrected with Parsley, and we don’t understand why this would be. We have other information from another source that was involved in Parsley’s acquisition of these two sections, which indicates that it is possible that Parsley is using an erroneous title opinion, one that was known to be incorrect before they sent out their division orders…and that other corrections were made for a some people before Parsley sent out division orders, based on their complaints about the amount of their ratification bonus. So, we know there are problems with this title opinion.
I’d like some good advice about how best to proceed with this situation at this point. This month is 6 months post-first-production, and we’d like to get into pay status. The DO analyst who was assigned our issue suggested that we sign the DO that was sent to us and they’ll correct it later, if they find that the figure is in error. We politely refused to do this; why sign a division order that we already know is incorrect? Parsley has access to their correct title opinion in the other section for which we’ve been in pay status for six years. The DO analyst has agreed with us that there are inconsistencies between the interest in the different sections, not only for us, but for at least one other party.
So…how long should it take them to get this corrected? It doesn’t seem to us that we should need to get an attorney involved, but what will it take to get this off dead center? Has anyone else had any experience with something like this? The DO analyst who is working on our issue falls back onto complaints about how he has other work to do and that this problem was given to him in addition to his other work.