When royalties stop - need advice -

Hello,

We have a lease with Charter Oak on two wells: Smedley and Hensen Haven in McClain County, Ok. 6 - 6N - 2W.

For several years we have received a monthly check for oil & gas royalties. Last month and this month they have stopped.

Our question is what is the procedure for companies re: notifying mineral rights owners when wells stop producing or other delay is occurring?

Is there a standard procedure such as notifications?

Or is it our responsibility to start investigating? If so, what do we do & where do we turn? To that end, in the past CO is not forthcoming with info when we have called them.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

No, they have no obligation to notify you. If they shut in the well due to mechanical trouble that they intend to fix, then they may pay you shut in fees according to your lease document.

The first thing you need to do is check your Division Order. Many of them have a minimum amount on them. The standard is $100. I always change mine to $25.

I just checked the wells site at the OCC and you have a new horizontal well Henson 6N 2W 6 1HX which spud in March. From the timing, I am going to guess that your wells might have been shut in during the frac job for the horizontal well. Very normal procedure to protect the older wells. Test. First sales were 7/17/18, so you should get a Division Order for that well in December or January and then payments shortly thereafter.

The other place that I checked was the OK tax site. Gross Production I see low production on the Henson Haven in August. They are running about two months behind in reporting. It may not have made enough money to pay you that month. That is where the DO amount comes in. I did look up the production and it was in a natural decline for some time. It may or may not come back.
I don’t see an active Smedley well in 6. Both of them were plugged and abandoned. There is a Smedley in 7… The Smedley Estate 1-7 in Section 7 was in severe decline back in July of 2017. Only produced a little bit in Jan and Feb of 2018.

I moved your question to McClain County, OK. Someone else may have more information.

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Thank you so much. You’re always so helpful. We will check our paperwork!

May we acquire the links you used to find out the info you’ve mentioned in your responses?

Thank you again. You’re a treasure!

If you touch the blue link it should open automatically. Then you can save them to your favorites.

I have an Excel spreadsheet that I made to save all my useful links. My Favorites kept getting lost when I changed computers, so the Excel sheet is my go-to place now.