My wife is winding down the estate of her late father. He passed without leaving any details, however we’ve been able to piece together ownership interests in two wells, one producing in Kingfisher County and one that was producing in Noble County Oklahoma. We’ve figured this out from information from royalty checks, we don’t have any information past that.
Grandfather passed away in 2000 leaving mineral rights to two surviving sons, son 1 with a direct interest and son 2 in a trust with son 1 as the trust administrator.
We are receiving royalty checks for the Kingfisher well which is operated by BCE-Mach III LLC and with royalties managed by Martindale. That well is named E.HENNESSEY UT.(COUPLAND#1), API # 3507335881.
We also have a mystery well, named PARMLEY 10-21N-1E, API 3510324588, for which royalty checks were received but stopped several years back. We can’t figure out if that well is still producing, and if so are royalties being held or if the well was shut down. It’s operated by Sequoyah Energy Holdings LLC.
Problem 1: We want to figure out who the names on the deeds are for mineral interests where both of these wells are located.
Problem 2: We live in Colorado and are looking for an attorney with experience in OK who can help with transferring mineral rights ownership to the heirs. No idea how to find someone, any pointers would help.
Problem 3: We need to figure out if PARMLEY is still producing, and if so why royalties stopped and if they are being held someplace.
For the first goal a land record search is in order. If you know the legal description that is very helpful. The check stubs may have information that you can use to back into the description. Name searches are also possible. Here are links where you can begin your research:
Any attorney licensed in Oklahoma can prepare deeds, but it is possible that you may need an Oklahoma probate in order to effectuate the transfer. This can be acheived fairly quickly in most cases without the need to travel to Oklahoma.
The PARMLEY 10-21N-1E IWH was operated by Sequoyah Energy but has had no production reported in the past 12 months. However there are other Pramley wells that are producing, whether you would be entitled to royalties depends upon where your minerals are located.
This post is not legal, tax or investment advice. Reading or responding to this post does not create an attorney/client relationship.
1: Both Kingfisher County and Noble County land records can be searched at least back into the 1990s via ok county records .com. You can do a name search or legal description search.
API: 3507335881 is in Kingfisher Co., Section 33-19N-06W
API: 3510324588 is in Noble Co., Section 10-21N-1E
This might help narrow down your search for deeds.
2: I believe this site has resources for reputable attorneys
3: The previous operator of the Parmley well was White Star Petro who filed for bankruptcy in 2019 (Sequoyah Energy become Operator in 2019) which may be a cause for lack of reporting production and/or paying royalties. I am sure someone here has production records to confirm.
Thanks Richard, my CO estate attorney has indeed said we’d need to go through probate in OK as part of the deed transfer. I’ll poke around on the website and see what I come up with.