Seeking Enlightenment on my Wahita County mineral rights. Thank you

I inherited mineral rights (royalties?) from my dad, an Oklahoma native, 20+ years ago. I have looked at sites searching for information such as: Q…Is there oil, gas, shale, wells, on my mineral lot areas? Q…How do I see activity over the past many years. (I called Chesapeake last year and was told there is no current activity now or for many years for my mineral area). Then I received a check from them in the amount of $.99 end of December 2014. Q…What does it really mean to have mineral rights. Q…I recall in my initial receipt of these mineral rights when dad passed that the rights would not passed to my children but ends upon my death.

Basically I know very little about this industry.

I have the feeling should I wish to sell my mineral rights (if I were even allowed to sell or transfer to anyone) the value would be neglible.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks,

Connie Reeder

3509324598. CAIN 1-29. (AC) Drlled not plugged. 29 20 N. 13 W NW4. CSE4.

Also found 3593245980001 NW SE C. ? This is directly under the name CAIN but instead of CAIN it’s blank

www.appsocceweb.com was the source of the above info. But I don’t know what this info actually means. Does it tell where the minerals are located etc??

You have some good questions.

With the information you gave, your minerals are located in Major County. The Well is called the Cain 1-29 and was drilled in 2007 by Chesapeake. The number you have is called an API number (American Petroleum Institute) which is the unique number given to each well. The initial completion was in the Inola and several other formations in the Atoka, Morrow, Chester and Mississippi Solid formations with 2 barrels of oil and 64 MCF gas at completion. Not impressive. However, it has dribbled along and has Cumulative oil at 5551 barrels and 218,479 mcf gas as of May 2014. It is technically a gas well and is limping along, but not quite done. (Hence your small check. They have to pay at least once a year until they shut it in.)

You can track activity for free on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission website. The link to the wells is:

http://imaging.occeweb.com/imaging/OGWellRecords.aspx Type in 2920N13W in the location box. You will see that there have been several wells in the section. However, you only get royalties from vertical wells if your acreage is in the spacing unit of the well.

I think from your wording that you have royalty rights for that particular well and you may not have actual minerals rights. Mineral rights give you the ownership of all horizons below the surface to the center of the earth. Royalty rights only give you the rights to payout of funds from the liquids produced from a well. However, it would depend upon the documents you have. You might want to hunt those down and I can help you on that.

In our family, we never sell our mineral rights since you never know when another horizon will end up being a reservoir-certainly seen in the last few years with the shale oil and gas horizontal drilling boom. There is quite a bit of leasing in your area over the last couple of years. In your particular section, Chesapeake applied for an additional well in 2012 for the Inola horizon. They fell on hard times since then and did not drill the additional well, but the reserves are still there. So you might want to make sure you have all your documentation and paperwork all collected so that you are ready in case someone wants to get interested. See if you can find a deed called a "Royalty Deed" or if it says "Mineral Deed" on the top. There are free places to hunt for information if you want to Friend me on the site.

The location is in Section 29 of Township 20N and Range 13W.

Outstanding information. I will friend you and I’ll try to dig up some of these docs. I have the original paperwork from receipt of this inheritance. My dad wouldn’t have had a will so this would have come to me through probate. I have not received a request to lease from any one for many years…at least 15. years. Also a long period of years with no royalty checks. 2013 & 2014 were the only ones for these past many years. Probably because it’s not producing.

Thanks. I’ll give more info when I dig it up and upload some documents. I’ve been good about keeping all correspondence in one file.

Regards and thank you for this thoughtful reply and offer to educate me.

Connie