Does anyone have a State of Texas Oil and Gas Lease in Reeves County using the GLO Relinquishment Act Lease Form? We signed our lease in 2017, and the new operator (the third one) is EQV Operating and suddenly we are being charged back-fees on gas that have never been charged before. They are calling them Service Fees and Bypass fees. I know the lease has some exceptions for processed gas, but I am not understanding their explanation. They are making retroactive charges–last month it was 50% of production, and this month it is 85%. I am getting ready to contact the GLO and just wondered if anyone else is seeing this.
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Definitely be asking questions. I about to get a lawyer myself. When they get millions out of the ground but hand you$235.89 something just isn’t right. And fees??? If you didn’t sign an agreement for these fees I’d argue that. What are they for? What right do they have to charge this? They are finding ways to take what’s yours
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EQV is bound by the royalty terms of the GLO lease for both the State and the owner of the soil. The GLO form prohibits the kind of expenses that you seeing. EQV may not be charging expenses to the State, but charging you in error. This is not uncommon and many of the owners of soil do not realize this. Send a certified letter to EQV stating that royalties must be paid cost-free in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 4 of the GLO Lease and demand reimbursement of the expenses to date and that no future costs be assessed. Tell EQV that if it takes the position that these charges are valid under the lease, then it must provide a written explanation, including citing which lease provision allows the charges, and whether or not it is also charging the State. Look look at the scanned lease file in the GLO on-line and see if there has been correspondence between the GLO and operator about cost charges. Also, the royalty provision of the GLO lease requires that royalties be paid on vented gas, flared gas, flash gas and lease fuel gas (ie lease use gas). Look at the detailed production reports on the RRC and see if any of those volumes are being reported and whether you are receiving royalties. Many operators will not pay the royalties on the lease use gas unless you demand it. You might have your attorney review your letter before sending. Your attorney may have to take over if you receive a negative response or no response, as some companies will just ignore individuals.
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Be sure and send any correspondence by Certified Letter Return receipt so that you have a paper trail. Keep a copy of everything that you send.
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TennisDaze,
Thank you so much for your very detailed information! This is so helpful. I will try first to look on GLO online–I didn’t know those documents were available. I will also try to look on RRC, although I have never been very successful navigating their website. And I will get my attorney involved if I need to.
Thanks so much for this valuable information!
M_Barnes,
Thanks for the tip, and I will certainly do that!
Be aware that all the sites really only function well with a computer and not with a pad. GLO website - along top line, Energy drop-down arrow for GIS Map Viewer. Under Map Viewers, select Land & Lease Mapping Viewer. Green Query at bottom will bring up query menu. You can use County & Abstract or County-Block-Section. On the section, you will see MF+6 digits (Mineral File #), perhaps one or more. Cursor click on the MF# and a box opens. Scroll to bottom where it says GIS Report Page. This page information about patent, survey etc. You should see Related Lease with other MF#. Such as Concurrent Oil & Gas Leases and Historic Leases / Pooling Agreements. Cursor click on blue MF# and page opens with Scanned File - Related Leases - Included Tracts. Scanned file will have lots of information, including lease, commingling permits, letters, etc., ordered by date with most recent at the end. Pooling Agreement selection also has information. The Pooling Agreement may only be scanned into one active lease or other folder and so good to check them all. You can download and save everything of relevance.
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WOW! This is amazing–I never knew this existed, and I found so much information, thanks to your detailed instruction! And based on the level of detail in the 672 pages, It would seem to me that there would have been some correspondence/email in the file regarding this issue, and there was none.
Thanks for this new discovery! Joy