Royalties stopped several years ago

My mother and aunt inherited surface rights and a small percentage of mineral rights to land with a gas well in Pesos County, Texas. They had been receiving royalty payments for years, but they were mysteriously discontinued in 2014 or 2015.

After doing some research on the Texas RRC, it appears the lease changed hands a couple times during that time frame. I found an operator change happened in 2017.

It also looks like the well was producing up until August of 2019 - and it now shows up on an Inactive Well Aging Report.

What’s the best way to go about finding out what’s going on with both the royalty payments and well production? Do I need to contact both the previous operator and current one?

Also - What are the ramifications of a well being put on the inactive report?

If you could send us the name of the well, and the survey it is located in and the six digit RRC lease number if you have it, one of us can probably get more information for you. If you look at your property tax statement, the lease number is often shown.

The well name is Fitzgerald 17-2, AP 37132613

I don’t see the lease number on the latest statement. There’s an RRC Identifier of 079901.

Hi C_Myers, the Fitzgerald well you are referencing is in abstract A-4333 of Pecos County, TX and the 079901 is the RRC lease number. It looks like the production from that well dropped down in 2015 and if you had a small interest, your royalty may have started calculating as a zero, or a few pennies. The well is now listed as temporarily abandoned. You could spend a lot of time and money chasing after less than a postage stamp.

According to RRC records, the well last produced in September 2019 and was shut in in October 2019. The well currently has a RRC deadline of October 2022 to be plugged.

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