Hi,
my name is Andy Lill. About a year ago my father, brother and i received seperate oil and gas lease contracts from the Conoco Phillips Company for are land/mineral rights in McKenzie County, NorthDakota. (Township 152 North, range 95 west, 5th P.M. Section 2:W2SW) This was a suprise since non of us knew that we owned anything in North Dakota! We waited about 7 months for verification of ownership from the McKenzie county courthouse, to find that we owned a whopping 1/4 acre apiece (yeah!).
Seeing how this was not involving Oprah money we did not seek a lawyer or proffesional guidance. My father signed the lease which seemed fair (3/16 royalty). However my brother and I did not because in researching leasing information it came to are attention that there is a possibility of receiving 100% royalty if we were involved through pooling legislation.
One week ago I was notified that the well was successful and the operation has changed hands to Hess Oil. I contacted Hess Oil and found that i'm going to receive a royalty check for approximately 1/16?! I thought that was weird because I never signed a lease agreement.
So what i'm asking is, did I take the right course of action or did I miss the boat? Should I ask for a lease? And if so, what should I expect or ask for taking into consideration that the well is good?
-the royalty challenged