Hi there. Is anyone hearing news about the play in Carroll County, OH? Is this a favorable time to lease? Can anyone tell me what the average bonus and royalty percentage is?
You need to be more specific as to your district or township. There has been quire a bit of leasing in the county over the last two years. Bonus amounts are not public. Local folks would have to answer, but need a better location.
It is Rose Township not far from the Tuscarawas County line.
Yes, there is leasing in that Township. Local folks would have to chime in on offers. You might want to contact the OHIO NARO chapter for more information. www.naro-us.org. The National Association of Royalty Owners.
What percentage of the bonus would I expect to pay an oil and gas attorney to negotiate a lease?
You would have to ask the attorney. If they want a percentage, find a different attorney. It should be a flat fee based upon their time.
HI! I’m in Monroe County Ohio and I’ve been approached for leasing our acreage as well. We’ve spoken with several attorneys and mineral management companies to help us with negotiations and here’s what we’ve found. If an attorney is doing the negotiations, they are more than likely going to tell you they either want a small percentage of the whole bonus amount or a large percentage of the increased bonus amount after negations, meaning their percentage is on the difference between initial offer and whatever amount the bonus ends up at.
We have chosen to do the negotiation legwork by calling different non operators for additional bids then using that to negotiate alongside recommendations from attorneys. Then we’re using an attorney to review the operators lease and provide us with addendums to submit to the operator based on an hourly rate! This option means more work for us as technically the middle man between attorneys and the operator but it’s extremely more cost effective and we have the time and feel comfortable going this route. If you aren’t comfortable negotiating and don’t have the time to research and make a ton of calls and emails then have an oil and gas attorney do it all for you.
We signed up for Ohio NARO chapter and got recommendations for multiple law firms and attorneys. That’s a great place for you to start.
My gut in Carroll county would be $2-4k/NMA, and a 15-18% royalty. Make sure it’s cost free, meaning the operator pays to market your product. Those fees are huge in this part of the Utica. You can thank Chesapeake and Williams for that.
Thanks for the advice!
Hi there,
Your info has been helpful. Can you tell me what % you mean when you say “ small %” of the bonus. A lawyer that has done some work for us transferring mineral rights after my father died, has come to me with an offer for a lease. I think the royalties and bonus are ok ( though I have no idea if he actually negotiated them) but would want to negotiate for a higher royalty. There are some important clauses that I want to be included as well. He wants 10% of the bonus, which I feel is unreasonable. I dont feel he is representing me, but instead is functioning as a landman. In which case let the company( nonoperator) pay him! I think I should tell him I will pay an hourly rate or perhaps a much lower percentage and if he refuses, find another attorney.
EOG has become very active in Carrol County and I feel pretty certain they are the operator in this possible future well. Any experience sealing with EOG?
I had one attorney say they wanted 30% of the increased bonus amount that they negotiated and another attorney say they wanted 5-7% of the total bonus lease. Both of these options were outrageous to me as we had a ready done some negotiations and were confident in our ability to negotiate with the operators. We researched and marketed our minerals to non operators to give us more offers when negotiating with the operator. All in all we ended us saving a significant amount of money by having an attorney create an addendum for us and being paid by the hour instead of doing the negotiations for us.
Is there a reason you prefer a lease with the operator rather than a non operator?
It honestly depends on the location of your property within a proposed unit. If you are in the middle of a proposed unit without any laterals near your property line, going with a non operator may or may not give you better lease terms as you would be working directly with them and then they in turn would be a non working interest in the wells that are drilled. They take on the responsibility, risk, and costs to drill their portion of the well!
However, if your property is near a unit boundary or worse, up against or boarding another units end point, not going with the operator could put you in a position where the operator could exclude you from a unit. This could reduce the likelihood that you’d ever get drilled because of a lack of space between your property and the two units you are sandwiched between. This would pose a major risk that is location and situation specific.