We are receiving payments for a well in Carter County. I cannot find a copy of the lease and have checked on the OK County Records website and cannot find it. Looking at the recent Division order we signed, it is noted that the current payee is now making payments because of an operator change to the well. I then asked the Lessor for a copy and they say they don’t have one. How can they be paying us without a copy of the signed lease from the previous operator? How do I go about finding the original lease?
Sounds like the new operator is just running off of the paydeck from the old operator and all of the documents were not transferred.
The OK County Records website does not go backwards before a certain date, so the original may be filed at the courthouse, but you have to go there to get a copy. Perhaps try calling the county clerk and ask how you might get a copy without a personal trip.
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Thanks for the advice, I will give it a try.
I have a similar problem. Cannot find a lease. I’m not sure we ever signed one. I’ve called the county clerk and she says they have no record of a lease. We did sign a division order. Is the oil company required to give us a copy of the lease? They are taking out over 40% of the royalties for gathering, etc. This is for horizontal wells in Oklahoma.
You may have been force pooled if you did not sign a lease. Or you may have had other wells holding the acreage from a lease decades ago from an ancestor who was pooled or leased.
Contact the Division Order analyst at the operator and ask for what instrument is holding the acreage-a lease and from whom or a pooling order and what royalty and net acreage are included. Ask for a copy of the lease or the pooling order number.
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Thank you for your quick reply. If we were forced pooled could they legally take out all these expenses? There are a couple of wells in that section that are still paying. Different company. Are you saying they could be using the lease with them?
It depends upon the age and wording of the pooling. Really old ones were gross with no post production expenses. Newer ones may have different language or fall under new statutes. That is why you need the case number and the order number.
If you have a lease, it also depends upon the language. If the lease had no depth clause, then all the wells follow the lease terms as long as they are in effect.
The other option is that accounting packages are often set to take the deductions, so if you have specific language that prevents them you have to contact the operator to re-set your part of the deck.
Thanks for your help. My wife’s grandfather was a landman and some of these leases go back to the 1930s. We inherited interests in 10 counties in east Texas. We’re only getting royalties in Panola County. He was a pretty shred business man. I find it hard to believe the other nine counties have no wells. I really struggle navigating the Oklahoma Corporation Commission site. I’m sure Texas is just as bad. But the legal addresses we have are all surveys in Texas. Where do I start to see if there are-any active wells in those nine counties? I probably need to hire someone to check it out.
Have you tried using www.texasfile.com for looking up leases? Free to look. A small fee to print.
Use the TX GIS map for looking up the County, Block, Abstract to see if there are wells. https://gis.rrc.texas.gov/GISViewer/
Select the County, then use the magnifying glass near the middle right and the drop down to select the block and abstract, also section if you have it.
Thanks for all your time. I will try that.
Answering the operator not having the lease may be that they just bought the “deck” which was the list of owners and their decimals from the title opinion and did not receive a copy of the lease. For very old wells, this is common, but unfortunate.
Newer horizontal wells with new leases should be easy to get, so not getting one implies an older lease or pooling in the same reservoir as the current horizontal. If you want to share the section, township and range, we can give you the old pooling cases to see if your ancestor or your name was on the respondents list.
I believe I started this topic in June but noticed your response to Chuck70. We have given up trying to find the lease on which we are being paid. Here is the info regarding the well and location if you were able to find the pooling information or whatever might lead to finding the original lease.
Well Name: #14266 SW Wildcat Jim Deese Unit; Section 7-2S-2W and a further description S/H NW/4 SE/4.
Thanks again,
There were actually 33 SW WILDCAT JIM DEESE wells. It is part of a waterflood unit. Only seven of them are still “active” Looks like the only well in that description would be the SW WILDCAT JIM DEESE UIT 20-2. Operator is listed as Johnson Oil Company. But its last production was listed as 9/2020 so just not plugged yet. I have a feeling you are getting paid on the Unit decimal and not your original decimal (very common in waterfloods). Once the original wells are formed into a waterflood unit, the spacing changes to the larger unit size and the decimals change to much lower. The good news is that the unit mineral owners get paid on production for all the wells based on the unit tract participation factor. If the wells in your original mineral acres are no longer producing, you get paid on the rest.
Where did the 14266 number come from? Are you getting paid by Johnson or Mack (JIM PENN unit)? I don’t see any production since 2022, so this might not be worth worrying about.
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