In a Planned Unit - What should I do now?
So our property has finally been put into a proposed unit. The hearing for the Withey NE and NW units are scheduled with the Ohio DNR in December. Based on other units in the area, if the schedule is similar, royalty checks should start to come in within the next 12-18 months. What should I being doing to prepare? Are there steps that I can take to reduce our tax burden? Also, I have heard many people on this site state that you should never sell your mineral interest. However, I have received what I consider a good offer of $17,000 per acre on a 17% no deduction lease. If we were to sell we would only sell 25%-50%. Should I get an oil/gas appraisal for the property and what should I expect to get from that as a result? A lot of questions, and there are probably some important ones that I haven't even considered. Any input/advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Dwight Talbot
Depending on how many net acres you have you could be better off keeping all and waiting for the production royalties. My advice is to never sell O & G rights unless you're needing money right away. My grandfather bought a lot of oil and gas rights at tax sales, etc for $5.00-100.00 and paid taxes on them for years, and now they have produced hundreds of thousands of revenue. 17% Gross is a good %. We have a property in Wetzel Co, WV that we were offered $10000/acre for and the 1st 2 checks from production were more than the total we were offered. We did have substantial acreage in the unit, however. You can look at the Declaration of Pooling filed in the county clerk's records office either in person or online possibly and find where you are listed in the unit and how many net acres you have in the unit. You can then use the formula to figure your payment decimal: Net acres in Unit divided by Total acres in the unit x Ownership fraction (percent) in the property parcel x 17% royalty = Payment decimal.
For example 70 acres / 580 Unit acres x 1/2 ownership x 0.17 = 0.01025862 payment decimal
Then you can see how much you would be paid out of each 1 million of products sold out of the unit well/wells.
$1,000,000 x 0.01025862 = $10,258.62
Most Marcellus Wells when first drilled will produce $1-3 million total per month for about the first 9 months and then begin to taper over the next several years.
It is true that you face paying taxes, but that comes with having income. You do have the 15% depletion deduction on your federal tax of the GROSS amount produced credited to you as well as any expenses, legal fees, accounting fees, and property taxes that you have paid in relation to the royalty income during the year.
Nov 12, 2025
Kambe
Is this unit named yet or the oil and gas company involved in the unit? Are there any nearby wells already in production, just curious as to activity
Nov 17, 2025
David Cain
(Just to record this process for anyone that may be in a similar situation in the future.) The Chief's Order has been issued on the Withey NE and NW units and Ascent plans to start drilling in the 3rd quarter of 2026. Ascent plans to drill two laterals per unit each being approximately 3 miles in length. The best offers I have received to sell my minerals is a solid $17,000 per acre and a tentative offer of $17,500 per acre by another company. After talking to several members on this site, we are choosing not to sell any of our mineral rights at this time. I'll make updates to this post as things progress. If anyone has any advice/recommendations I welcome your input.
Thanks
Feb 14