Hello Oklahoma group!
I posted a version of this question in the General Forum last week (not knowing where to begin), and was advised to post it here as well. I'm revising this one a bit to reflect what I've learned since then--this group is so very helpful! Here goes:
I'm completely new to mineral rights, and have recently come in to ownership of overriding royalty interests in several leases in Oklahoma counties. These leases were brokered by my grandfather in the 1960s, hence he received a share of the ORRI. My grandfather died in 1973. My grandmother lived until 2015, and now the interests are being divided amongst her heirs.
I understand that ORRI's live and die with the lease. Once the lease ends, any entitlement to ORRI's from that lease end. But my confusion is in determining which wells covered under that lease are relevant to me. If an operator working under a given lease drilled and completed a well in 1975 (after my grandfather died) would his heirs be entitled to ORRIs from the new well?
From the OCC database I've been able to come up with a list of all drilled/unplugged wells on each of the parcels identified by the property definitions. Some of the operators have been paying family members consistently. For those, I can trace the sequence of operators, by looking at the respective 1073 forms, to the original leased operator.
However, we know of at least one operator who has paid me, but did not have records of other family members who were entitled to exactly the same interests. Those family members are working on submitting documentation establishing their claim. But meanwhile, I'm trying to determine whether we need to investigate other wells under the same lease whose operators have not issued payments to us, to see if they need to update their records.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide to a newbie!
Anita G.