Janie, you have a common problem. You need to pin down what you own through searching the recorded documents. You could just do a quick skim of the documents and ask the operators associated with each spacing you think you have minerals in, but if they say they don’t see you have an interest, you will have to do the title search anyway.
If your contact information on record is correct, they should have already found you.
Is there somewhere I can go or someone I can hire to teach me what I need to know. This all involves a lot of members of my family and I need to know how they, and I, should proceed with all of this. There are several plots owned which where purchased by my grandfather and we need to know how to maximize our profits and I need to understand what’s going on. I’m in MN but am willing to take time to go to ND and learn, if I know where to go.
Does anyone have any feel for typical lease terms in 146, 98, Section 6 in McKenzie County? Our lease is up for renewal and we just got an offer. Thanks.
Family owns a 2/3 interest in 32.61 acres (mineral rights only), township 153 North Range 98 West, Section 24 (N/2NW/4), SW/4NW/4). Some members received oil, gas and mineral lease offer from Statoil last summer (dated back to Nov 11, 2011), and signed it. Other members (including my line) did not receive the offer. There was a well mentioned in the letter: Jay 24-13 #1-H , File 21791. One main question. As best I can tell, this well may be situated in Section 25 (NDIC describes well location NENE 25-153-98W), but I can’t find the well on the map, and it is described currently IA. Where is this well? If in Section 25, has this well been drilled under Section 24, and if so, would that lead to an ownership interest in the well? Or is there something else that would account for ownership? (Statoil did respond to my inquiry about ownership asking for documentation but also indicating that it was currently paying owners of that well for production).
Hello, anybody know at all how long an oil co. Caps a well while fracking another well on the same well pad? Thanks
Time to hire a professional.
There is no trust. There are leases on these parcels, but none of them involve me in any way. The property is leased, but not by me. XTO has taken out several leases on the parcels with other entities who also own mineral rights within those parcels. I guess I don’t know how else to explain it.
Janie, you say leases then talk about negotiating leases? Jainie, you either have a lease, are unleased or someone, oil/land company set up a trust in your predecessors name and leased from the trust. To find out if there was a trust, contact the county treasurer in McKenzie county with the name of your predecessor. I hope there was no trust because the treasurer rubber stamps bad leases,“in your best interest”. Not mad at you but it’s hard to help when we don’t know if it’s leased or not. To make it worse, landmen assume you are going to lease so it’s all a lease whether you have leased or not, people pick that up and start takling about their “lease” which is actually their unleased mineral acres, their property. Confusing.
Janie, if there is a lease, it follows the land like a lien until it expires by it’s own terms, so there won’t be any more leasing on those parcels until the current lease ends.
If the current lease itself is not in the NDRIN database but the extensions are, there really should be memorandum of lease. When I do a search, I search for all documents indexed with a legal description, everything comes up, statements of claim, leases, deeds, memorandum, easements, mortgages, everything. Then you sift through it all, and not just one legal description if you have several, you have to do it for several to make sure that you have found everything. The achiving of documents is done by people, people make mistakes. I have found documents that unless you input the document number will not appear in a search of the appropriate legal description. You have to be very through. Can’t just search leases. Your documents could be indexed wrong also.
I have mineral holdings in McKenzie County. I recently found out there were holdings that I was not aware of. I have gotten the property Mineral/Royalty Deeds recorded and in hand after reopening Mother’s probate and began researching. It seems there are several leases in effect for parts of my holdings which currently aren’t listed in the NDIC. Specifically listed as Township 154, Range 26, Sections 27, 28, 29, 32 and 33. Most of the leases are by XTO Energy. How do I assert my rights in this matter. Do I simply contact XTO directly and give them the necessary information? Will I have to negotiate a lease at that time?
As always, any information is greatly appreciated.
Janie
I flew over that area on Tuesday afternoon enroute home. Although it was hard to tell from 40,000 feet, it still looked pretty frozen. Hopefully, it thaws slowly.
Rick, I would want a drilling commitment to get all of your minerals into production, say at least 4 wells within 5 years or I would not lease.
If you sign their lease without a solid drilling commitment, I think it likely that you will wind up with 1 poor well with an inadequate sand frack and not see any more activity for decades. By leasing you are assisting in their program of holding your minerals by production on the shelf. Your appreciating asset becomes their appreciating asset at minimal cost, with a well drilled and completed for the minimum cost which will pay poor royalty and leave recoverable oil in the ground. I would say this program is not in your best interest. Unless you are dying for the $500 per acre or whatever you can negotiate it to.
Other than that, the offer sounds fine.
They want you to take deferred payment in the form of royalty but if they drill only one poor well, significant payment will be far in the future when they produce in earnest. 45,000 barrels of oil in 2 years,[ better well in the area] and then a real decline. I just wouldn’t want my appreciating asset to become their appreciating asset under those terms, unless you don’t know where your lunch money [value meal] is going to come from.
I received a junk letter buy offer from Woodcreek Resources of $8,500. Junk because it has the landman bullstuff at the bottom asking you to commit to sell to them A. all of your mineral acres or B. part of your mineral acres before they do any looking. LOL. I sent them an e-mail, to their YAHOO account, saying that I would consider a firm offer but I’m not playing their game. I have heard no reply.
They were interested in 149-96-17 in which I am unleased with a paid off well already on it.
Hi All I have just been offered the same lease terms from 2011 for the same parcel - 26, 147n, 99w. Which were $500 per acre and 3/16ths. I think that is way out of date. Does anyone have new offers in that area? Thanks
Hi Janie, The North Dakota oil and Gas website has a well search function on right hand side of home page. Once you choose that just fill in your township and range. That will bring up every well and permit in that area. As an example it looks like there are two new Petro Hunt wells with a wellhead in 152-96-11. But I would also recommend you use the GIS server choice to bring up a map of that area because you may have a well or wells that have the wellhead in another section but the lateral runs into your section. In the case of 152-96-11, it appears to me there are 7 or 8 lateral running from section 2 into 11. Based on the map, those Petro Hunt wells may run south of you. If it’s unclear which direction a well runs, ( the maps are very crowded in some areas) you can call/email the state office and give them the well numbers/name and they will tell you exactly what sections it runs through.
So I should check all my sections this way? Would I then contact the companies that have laterals running into or through my sections? Thanks so much for the response.
I recently became aware of more mineral rights that had been willed to me. I contacted the companies involved in these wells because the NDIC said there were active wells on these properties. I was told there are wells all around my property but that mine just contain well pads. This is a new one to me. Is there any way to know if they are yanking my chain? The properties are T152 R96 S11 and T153 R95 Sections 4 and 5.
Yes Janie, you should check all your sections that way and contact the companies. T-152 R96 section 11 has 7 wellbores with the wellheads originating in section 2 North of section 11, all wells are successful in that spacing. Dianne knows what she is talking about, The operator is Burlington Resources so I wiuld contact CONOCO PHILIPS who handles all of the owner relations for Burlington to cut out the middle man and a faster response.
As Dianne said the map can be a little busy but you can click on the area you are interested in and zoom in which will enlarge what you are looking at and give better detail. Just click zoom to section again to return to the previous view. The well/s names are IRON HORSE. Close to 1 million barrels of oil have been produced from that 1280 since 4-12-2009 and the wells are still strong. The oldest well, from 2009 still produces on average 200 barrels of oil per day. If it were mine and I were not leased and I had 5 acres, I would not lease and get a lawyer/other professional help.
This has convinced me that I need professional help with this. I can’t make head or tails out of the GIS map and certain can’t tell what to look for on it. Most of my rights are in high producing areas so I’m to have to figure this out somehow. Thanks for the info.
Janie, I think getting a professional to help could be the best decision you ever made. In your place I would be looking for a minerals manager.