Can someone help me with a question I have? I am looking at a couple lease offers for our minerals in a section not yet drilled in Mountrail County about 8 miles NE of Tioga. I received this response in one of the negotiations and I don’t know enough about the process required in a 1280 spacing unit for a driller to acquire those rights to drill. Does this sound correct that our mineral acres are less desirable for leasing since much of the other acres are held by Hess already? (Please read the following I received from a Landman, I x’ed out some details for privacy)
I dug into this acreage. I will try to explain. The remaining acreage in Section X, outside of your acreage, is all held in a unit by Hess. That is not good news for your acreage. That means that Hess already controls most of the section with the acreage they have drilled that is in the unit. So, to get anyone interested in leasing the remaining interest that you own in this section is very low. This is because no other operator can operate or drill it. So to ask for $XXX per acre here may not work for us because we are basically throwing money out the window. It doesn’t matter if oil is $50 or $100 a barrel. Your acreage is basically isolated within a section that Hess has 75% control over. If we even decide to lease this, it won’t be at $XXX, so let me know if you are willing to come down. You can “hold out” like you say too, but it won’t matter. It doesn’t change the scenario that Hess has put you all in with this acreage. Let me know your thoughts. Thank- XXX