Is Pooling Required in Oklahoma or “Industry Standard”?

General Mineral Rights Discussion
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I’m still trying to understand the pooling process in Oklahoma, and hope someone on the Forum can help! There are many posts here about pooling in Oklahoma, but I’m trying to see if an application to the OCC is required by statute, or just “industry standard”?

Maybe others here have had similar situations to ours, where I, and others, own approximately 5% of the minerals in a 640 acre spacing unit in Oklahoma. An oil company/operator thought they had leased all the minerals and drilled/completed a horizontal well, although it didn’t produce at the projected levels.

Shortly after production began, the operator was notified they had failed to lease all the legal mineral owners. When requested to lease, or pool the unleased owners, the operator told us that due to the lower than anticipated production, they were refusing to lease us, and said a pooling application to cover our minerals wasn’t required. Rather, they unilaterally converted all of us to “carried working interest owners”, which means, we were never provided the opportunity, via a pooling application, to make our own decision to participate in the well, or choose a royalty percentage/bonus for our minerals. So now, based on production levels, we will never see a penny for any of our 5% of the production, although the operator continues to receive payment from the sale of our minerals! If the well was a big producer, I bet the operator would have been more than happy to lease or pool us, once they were notified of their error! It appears they got a free “look down the hole” at our expense!!

Any guidance/advice from others would be greatly appreciated!! It’s hard to justify legal fees to fight an oil company, when you’re not receiving any revenue from your minerals!!

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Have you tried sending a certified mail return receipt to the Division Order analyst and ask what royalty they assigned you, and demand payment, just to see what happens? Ask if there was a penalty for the carried working interest and when would the expected pay out date would be. Ask for copies of the JOA and all documents that a working interest owner should have. You need data to work with.

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Understand that the leasing drilling fracing process is a big gamble for mineral and surface owners. It’s getting to where not leasing is the better strategy. For several reasons. Unless it directly by a large oil company with a real aversion to dry holes

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This is what you get into with peanut operators. They oversold it now no one gets anything but the wreckage. They sold more than 100% now u cant find them. Wouldnt happen with Exxon. And wouldn’t matter if you got your money up front like u have to

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Excellent analysis Daniel. We don’t let them look down the hole for free