Validity of Federal O&G Leases

[filmore]

How do I look up NM leases of the form NM-123, LG-123, L-123, and “Lease dated XXX executed by John Smith”?

I’m helping with a probate and researching the NM oil and gas interests that the decedent had from the '70’s. Many of them look something like this:

• X% ORR interest in Federal lease NM-123 …

Where the lease is one of the following formats:

• Federal NM-123
• State LG-123
• State L-123
• Lease dated XXX executed by John Smith

Is there a way for me to look up these leases to see if they are still valid?

[PeteR]

@filmore, you might try the New Mexico State Land Office map (NMSLO) https://mapservice.nmstatelands.org/OilGasMinerals/

or the NM State Land Office Lease Search NMLeaseSearch

Also, WellDatabase has a lease search feature.

If you would like to post one of the actual lease numbers someone may have the resources to give a few more clues.

[PeteR]

@filmore, the links in the previous post will help with the state leases (LG and L numbers). The lease signed on a given date would have to be looked up in the county records. The NM-123 leases are probably recorded with the Bureau of Land Management, and there are several sites to find information on those leases…although it may be helpful to have the Section Township Range information available to help with those searches.

[filmore]

Thanks for those links. I’m not having any luck looking up the leases by their numbers. I’m not sure that my leases are in the format that they want. Here’s one example from Eddy County, NM:

State Oil and Gas Lease L-6923 dated Feb. 1, 1972, covering SW/2NE/4, SE/4NW/4 of Sec. 36, T 25S, R 26E, containing 80 acres.

But when I try to enter “L-6923” on a site like nmstatelands.org, it doesn’t seem to find it:

Select Search Type: Lease Search

Search for: L-6923

No results found.

Or the search sites ask for values that don’t seem to apply to my lease, such as Prefix, Number, Assignment, OGRID, Company Name, etc.

[PeteR]

@filmore, the closest thing I could find would be L0-6932-0001, which otherwise seems to match your description, but has been inactive since 1994. Currently in that space (36-25S-26E) from the NMSLO Land Status map, leases V0-7313-0002 and V0-7314-002 are active, which would also indicate that old leases in that area are now inactive. L0 was the prefix, and 6932 the number. The L0-6932 lease was previously with BP America Production, OGRID 778, and was a 10 year lease from 1972 to 1982, but listed as inactive as of 1994.

[filmore]

Thanks so much for that detailed response! It’s starting to become clearer, although I’m not sure if I’m looking up things correctly. When I look up the township on NMSLO I don’t see that L0-6932 lease, but I do see this 6921 lease. Is that 6932 lease somewhere else?

You mention other leases in that space of 36-25S-26E. By any chance, is there a way to show the section boundaries in the map? I can spot section 36 because it’s in the corner, but I’d have to eyeball where the other sections are. I couldn’t find a way to add section boundaries. But this is still very helpful anyway. At least I can now look up the townships and see if any of my leases are in the list.

[PeteR]

Hi @filmore, yes, you can see L0-6921 because it is still an active lease, but it is located in Section 2 of 25S-26E. L0-6932 was from Section 36, but currently there are other active leases shown there. If you have the Locations Layer and Public Land Survey System boxes checked, the sections should show up as shown on these screen shots. (These are from the NMSLO Land Status map) https://mapservice.nmstatelands.org/landstatus/

Hope this helps. Keep on posting and hopefully we can work through any items you can’t locate.

[filmore]

Thanks! Having the section numbers makes it a lot easier to spot if there are leases in my sections or not.

I called the NM Land Office about some of the old leases of the form L-1234 that I was not able to lookup. It turns out the missing leases are just on microfiche and are not in the online database. The office is able to look them up even though I can’t see them on the website.

The leases of the form “NM-12345” are federal leases. They can be looked up on the BLM site:

https://reports.blm.gov/report/MLRS/119/CR-Serial-Register-Page-Oil-and-Gas-Geothermal

But my old lease serial numbers are in the legacy format. I have to convert them to the current BLM format. There’s a section on that page called “Legacy Serial Number Examples” that explains how to do it. To look up a legacy lease like “NM-12345”, I would actually look up “NMNM 012345”. The spaces and leading zeros are required. The current lease number may not have the same digits that the legacy did. A legacy lease like “NM-12345” may have a modern lease serial number like “NM-105368193”.

Thanks for all the help. This info has been very useful to help pare down the list of royalty interests that may still be active.

[PeteR]

@filmore, thanks for sharing all that you found.