Thanks Virginia and Greg. One other question is what is a lease bonus. The other section we leased out only offered a ten dollar in hand deal. I’m feeling a little stupid right now.
Tom
Thomas,
Never feel stupid, always ask questions as we all started somewhere. I was lucky that my parents taught me at a very early age.
A lease bonus is what you get when you agree to lease your land. Most land men will offer you anywhere from $200 to $800, depends on how far away a good well is. Usually it goes like this. You get a call from a land man, he said, I would like to offer you $150 for a 3 year lease with 3/16 and a 2 year extension. Usually you can get a little more than what they offer if a well is coming in next to your farm. BUT, there is a lot more to leasing than getting a bonus and 3/16. You need to know what your lease says. Some leases are only in favor of the oil companies and if you sign, you may be giving lots of your rights away including paying for things that you shouldn’t be paying for. I have been marking about 1/2 of everything out on my leases. I have my own lease, but when an oil company doesn’t want mine, then it’s mark out time. If they don’t want that, they can get lost.
I hope this helps. If not, email me and I will try and help you.
Thank you for the information… I have the county records link but not the court record one. I’ll be checking it out right away. I have the wills from way back and I can use the book and page numbers to narrow down the search! Thank you again.
It is your cut of production (royalty), so 20% is more than 3/16ths which is more than 1/8th. If the well makes $100,000 one month, the royalty owner(s) gets $20,000 if they leased at 20%, but only $12,500 if they leased at 1/8th.
Ann,
If you have an attorney in Payne County, you may ask him what he will charge to clear your mineral deed up. If you know your way around the county clerk office, you may be able to get a lot of the information for the attorney and then it may not be as much. Good luck.
Ann,
You are lucky that Logan County has on-line search.
Don’t know if you have this site for county clerk records:
If you find what you need, you can go to another site at $10 per month and look and print them out for so much per page.
Court Records are at:
You may be able to find probate records there.
Virginia
Virginia, not a problem… our son-in-law is an attorney. 
If your son-in-law is an attorney, he can do all the needed papers for you if you have probate records and check the county clerk records to be sure when was the last filing on the mineral. Then all you have to do is send the papers to be recorded for about $12.
I keep forgetting not everyone can get into all records.
Ann,
I have found “Orders of Distribution” online, that have been recorded through the county recorder, but if I recall correctly, you can only search back to 1991 or 1992. You can pay in $5.00, $10.00 (+) increments to print out as many records that you need. Everything you print is saved for 60 days (I think) in the event that you need to print out more copies.
Here in Nevada, because probates are recorded and made as a “public record” I can go down and get a copy of anybody’s petition to probate, petition to set aside estate, will, codicil to a will, death certificate or anything pertaining to any estate, as long as the case hasn’t been sealed which I would then need a court order to retrieve. The only time I have problems is if the decedent had everything placed in a trust because trusts in Nevada are not normally recorded. I don’t know about Oklahoma, but I would think probated estates would fall under the same category as being a “public record”, so you might want to call the clerk to check it out.
Hope you’re able to find what you need!
If the oil company wants to lease some minerals and several people own it, the oil company has to make an offer to each one. It doesn’t have to be the same offer. Let’s say, #1 person owns 80 acres and they lease for $200 per acre and 3/16. #2 person owns 40 acres and they don’t want to lease for that, but they will lease for $350 per acre and 3/16. Now there is still 40 acres and that person doesn’t want to lease under any terms. The oil company has tried everything they can do to get everyone to sign a lease. So, they go to OCC and get a pooling order. Now #3 person doesn’t get a bonus and usually it’s only 1/8 that is given by OCC rulings. I’m sure this is clear as mud, but it’s the best I can do. I’m sure some of the oil men can explain this better.
Can anyone tell me if it is legal for a company to sign a lease with just one person who has a percentage of mineral rights and not the others. If so is the company bound to pay all who own mineral rights, or do they just lose out?
Virginia,
When you said “wells in Logan County are coming in good, but I have been told they aren’t staying that way” are you referring to the Horizontal Mississippian wells Devon drilled around 19N-2W?
Ann,
The “Favored Nation Provision” can be helpful on small acres, but I would find it hard to enforce on large acres. First, unless the oil company or leasing company are very nice, they aren’t going to let you know that they are paying more per A in your area.
If you ask your neighbor, he probably will be reluctant to provide that information, much less prove it. You will need proof that the oil company paid more.
Then you will have to state how far away this provision includes, a square of 4 sections or what. Some have time limits, like 30 days to 60 days, etc.
If a person can get an oil company to accept a lease with this provision, good luck in proving it. That is the hard part.
One of the things we have working in our favor is there are three of us… me and two brothers… in Alabama and an aunt and uncle in Oklahoma. We generally compare offers when there is any doubt. So far, the companies have been consistent in their offers and we don’t have large tracts in Logan County so it wouldn’t matter if they did agree to pay more. There wouldn’t be that much money involved. By the way, I love this site!
Thomas, it’s my understanding from the reading I’ve done that yes, it’s legal to sign a lease with just one of the owners, but I gather it is in your best interest to sign a lease with the highest percentage you can get; otherwise, the oil company will pay at the 3/16th rate if they know who owns the rights.
Virginia:
Correct, I was referring only to Oklahoma since this is the Logan County OK forum… but yes, it certainly varies significantly by state.
I think that covers it pretty well Virginia. When we had a lawyer look over some of our contracts, he suggested a clause… and I don’t know what it’s called but I think Most Favored Nation or something like that… that states if they sign anyone for a higher bonus than you’re signing for then they will pay you the difference.
Steven, Thanks for checking this out for us!
I may be wrong on this, but OCC used to keep records on what bonus where paid on leases. Not sure if they still do. Maybe someone on this forum can tell us for sure. I know Donna or Junior would know.
One more question. Does anyone know what the avg. life of the Mississippi well is? If I remember right, it’s a short life well under 8 years.
In Virginia’s example below, person #3 actually does get a bonus as determined by the pooling order. Oftentimes, they are given choices such as the following: 1) Participate in the well 2) Receive a 1/8 royalty with $X bonus 3) Receive a 3/16 royalty with $Y bonus 4) Receive a 1/4 royalty with no bonus.
The various royalties and bonuses differ from place to place and time to time, but this is an example that illustrates your choices.