My big drop in royalty check

I'm leased with Noble Energy. My royalty checks have declined due to the low selling price of gas, but

the checks have been decent. I received my latest check today and was quite shocked, The amount per

acre I received from last months check to the current one went from $118.29 per acre to $4.16. Why the

big drop? The wells have only been producing for 2 years now, so there's plenty of gas left. Did they cut

back on production that much? Has anyone else experienced a drastic decline in royalties. I have no

deductions of any kind taken from my checks by the way.

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Permalink Reply by Zack Jameson on March 29, 2016 at 4:23am

Where are the 20 plus years of royalties we were promised? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say production is throttled back. I'll wait and see what the royalty checks in the coming months reveal. The O&G companies want to make money like the rest of us, so hopefully they find a solution to this whole mess.

Permalink Reply by Bill F. on April 4, 2016 at 3:29am

Now people are beginning to see the reality of NG drilling.Lots of Hype ...

Permalink Reply by Zack Jameson on April 4, 2016 at 4:12am

Bill F. .......Exactly, lots of hype. Sure, many of us have made some big bucks....but many are holding out for lost hopes. Several years have passed since the frenzy started and now that the "dust has settled", landowners have come to realize that it's nothing near what they anticipated or expected. Lots and lots of hype !!!

Permalink Reply by Tusc-county-man on April 8, 2016 at 9:53am

Perhaps the O/G folks had the game plan worked out way out in advance.....before landowners had a clue.

Starting with the lease......back when everyone said the the real money is in the Royalties!!!!!   perhaps they already knew that the lease wording wasn't going to matter.....they'd just deduct what they wanted, pay us what they wanted. With that in  thier back pocket.....the only thing left to do was preach the royalty gospel to get leases signed on the cheap.....took the landowners going and going.

Before I hear all the crap about beware what you sign, get lawyers...etc.....forget it. These are good folks that bought and paid for thier land.....and they expected to treated fairly.

I'll only sign a deal with money upfront based on the current level of theft. dishonesty going on.

Permalink Reply by INVICTUS on April 4, 2016 at 4:46am

No, It's also real. But there was much hyperbole and sales BS.

Treat it like a business.

Do the hard work of thinking about it, learning about it, and not just cashing the check or treating it like found money.

The O/G people are now our business partners. Act like a partner and you will be treated as one. Not a perfect guarantee, but if we carry ourselves as victims, that will pour over into our actions.

BTW, being partners doesn't mean we lie down and act as a doormat!

Treat this like a business!!!!!!

Permalink Reply by Bill F. on April 8, 2016 at 9:29am

O & G people were never our partners .They just pretended to come on like that so they could tie up our mineral rights ....In order to keep them honest you need a lawyer full time .

0ym9x5ag7ury2Permalink Reply by 0ym9x5ag7ury2 on March 29, 2016 at 1:24pm

Ohio ODNR says that production has never been greater than in 2015. That hints that the throttle back is a farce.

Why would Chesapeake throttle back on NGLs when they are still free for the taking?

Permalink Reply by David Allen Lilly on March 30, 2016 at 1:54am

In reply to Ron and Zack, promises are nothing unless they are in writing, and even then....

What are the production numbers for your specific wells, as reported to the state, and how do you verify them ?

If you were promised 20 years of royalties did you get that promise in writing, in the lease you signed ? Is it not fair to ask if market conditions have changed and at some point the production being choked off is not in your own best interest as well as the producer ?

And why would Chesapeake throttle back NGL production, in fact how can they do that if the system is set up to separate the NGL's ?  Is it even possible to move natural gas without the NGL's being separated ?

Your comments are far to generalized, I am not against either of you but you lack any specificity that would be of help to the rest of us. How can we know if you are really being cheated if you cannot be more specific and how can we take up a cause when the caused is not more articulately verified ?

Permalink Reply by txgeo on March 30, 2016 at 3:55am

Good points. I think people are far to quick to assume that everything a gas co does is specifically to spite them. Not that landowner abuses don't happen, but they are not the sole cause of everything that happens. Ratcheting back production in a price decline can be good for both the landowner and the gas co, especially if you're in the first couple years of production. you don't want all your hydrocarbons sold at crappy prices, and neither does the operator. In regard to Ohio's overall production, that may be true. Operators probably brought new wells online, etc. But even if total production goes up, that doesn't mean that Noble as a company hasn't backed off of production. It could even be just that well, or a certain area.

As David said, without details you can't define any specific reasons. 

Permalink Reply by INVICTUS on March 29, 2016 at 10:15am

I have to respond to this. My royalty for April is five times higher than usual.

It's a KWGD lease. Anyone else in any of the Williams group get this surprise?

I figured it had to do with renegotiated pipeline gathering fee rebates?

Permalink Reply by David Allen Lilly on March 30, 2016 at 1:59am

I strongly suspect that your royalty situation is based mostly upon the strength of your lease and the extent to which it protects you in regards to royalty payments and deductions.

This has been my suspicion all along.

If I had merely believed the words coming out of the mouth of the first guy to stop here with a lease for me to sign I would have gotten $10 an acre and a 12.5% net royalty. I would then have been in the unfortunate (and ultimately impossible) position of trying to get what I was told I would get instead of what the legal requirements of my lease say I should get.

It isn't that I have no compassion for others and their plight but we need better, more realistic information to base our decisions upon. I fear a great amount of the troubles stated here as fact relate to a great degree to the lease they signed.

Permalink Reply by Frank Walker on March 30, 2016 at 4:04am

David

All so true.  Up to a certain point (just prior to the crash), the longer you waited to lease the better you did.  I'm thinking not just of royalty fraction and bonus, but (especially) of lease terms, too!

It's a great sadness, though, that many landowners were not financially positioned, back then, to hold out.  So many landowners have paid dearly for having signed bad leases out of pressing need and failure of due diligence.  And they will continue to pay for the remainder of their lives and the lives of their progeny.  I wish there were a remedy for this.  I know of none.

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