Our family just received a mineral lease offer from Anadarko Petroleum for $250 per acre signing bonus and 1/5 royalties. We hold 20 mineral acres in this tract. After browsing the Texas Railroad Commission site, it appears that Anadarko drilled several wells in the Roganville settlement area of Jasper County in 2009. The tract that we hold is for a new well site. Anadarko has already filed the drilling permit information with the Railroad Commission so I assume that they plan to drill shortly.
Is anyone else aware of whether our initial offer is reasonable compared to others in the same area of Jasper County? I have done a lot of research on other counties in East Texas but have not been able to find much information on Jasper County leases.
Thanks,
Wayne
Haynesville/Bossier activity is now starting to reach further South into Sabine County. Also seems to be some interest in deeper Cotton Valley Lime production in that region. Lease prices for those formations just a bit North of you in Sabine, San Augustin, Shelby County have been in the $1K to as high at $5K per acre range + 25% royalty recently - depending upon many factors such as location, amount of competition between various companies, etc.
I would suggest checking in at the County Clerks office in Jasper County (in person, or online) to take a look at which companies are currently leasing in your area and then check in to see if there are multiple companies leasing so as to try and get some bargaining leverage with Anadarko to improve the offer.
Keep in mind that your money is in the ground so, although there is likely some improvement possible on the bonus $$$, that pushing the royalty up to 25% and securing other lease concessions in your schedule A addendum to your contract will ultimately be of greater long-term value than huge bonus.
Good luck.
Dear Mr. Michaels,
Your offer is generally inline with what they have been offering to others. Some landowners report receiving $300 per acre and 1/4 royalty.
Of equal importance is the lease form – make sure that you do not pay for transportation, heating, compression, dehydration, etc. costs.
Jasper County is online through www.titlex.com
Wayne,
In the attached files are a few of the items that you should try to negotiate in your favor in your lease addendum. These will not likely be offered up immediately by the operator, but they are common items that generally can be worked out in your favor.
Also, keep in mind that once the operator brings in one in your unit into production, then you will be “held by production” and locked into indefinately whatever lease terms that you agree to now. For that reason, it is in your best interests that prior to signing you do spend a little front money to have your document looked over by a competent Oil and Gas attorney to make sure there is not any other wording in Anadarko’s contract that you might want to have stricken or amended.
Best of luck. 3037-oilgasleasechecklist.pdf (20.1 KB) 3038-jfhintsonlease1997.pdf (170 KB)