William, I am not the best person for an answer here, but I will give you my opinion. Keeping in mind I don't know how other Producers treat their Lessors, we asked for and got a no deductions clause added to the addenda. Our producer has honored that and they take zero deductions from our production to pay royalties.

Having said that, the horror stories I read on this forum concerning the backdoor deductions being taken from a gross at the wellhead worded lease leads me to believe the lease language matters less than the integrity of the Lessee.

Your question is not dumb....wish I could say the same for my response to it! lol

Yes William....that is the completion rig. It is a smaller drilling rig that is used before AND after the BIG rig drilled the bulk of the well....primarily the bottom of the vertical well and the entire horizontal leg.

That rig will open the cement plug placed after the fracing process.

After that process is complete, the operators will  conduct the 'flowback' work, where all the water (most of it, anyway) is recovered during the flowing of produced gas. This will last some time, depending on the amount of water used in fracing.

This is the final step of production, and you will collect royalties at some future time from this stage.

I wish you well, and enjoy the gift!! Only today's though....don't spend it until you have it, because the true decline curve will not be revealed for 12 months or more, depending on production methods.

wow.  Well good for you.  She probably had a serious problem but that's not your fault.  Ya I guess if you got it that cheap spending a $1,000 on some legal advice might not be so bad.  Still a great deal overall.

Well I don't know how long ago this event occured nor do I know where this interest is located but what I wouldn't do is count on them to do the homework to try to determine who owns it.  If you think you own it then by all means get the documents in your possession to prove it and make sure they are all filed properly at the courthouse or abstract office etc.  There are many instances in which it is impossible to determine who owns all the interests due to the extreme fractionation of these interests after so many generations have passed.  In those cases the O&G remits the funds for royalties etc to the state and it goes into the unclaimed property account.  Just because they can't determine who owns 100% of the minerals doesn't stop them from drilling nor should it.  It is a daunting task to wade through the plethora of legal documents  to try to figure all this out and at some point they stop and just call it good.  It is a problem for sure.  In Louisiana the minerals go back to the surface owner after so many years of no production so this keeps things in some order and I'm not sure that is not the best system.  In 200 more years what will happen is the state will end up getting the lions share as ownership will just be impossible to determine in many cases.

I don't know anything about that sir. 

Not a lawyer but in Oklahoma the minerals can and most times have been severed from the surface so there are deeds covering those minerals separately.  Somewhere in all that process as the estate's assets were divided per the instructions in the Will or trust I would have assumed some paper trail would have been created that can be followed to show how those interests were transfered.  I acted as the executor for my parents estate and that is how it was done.  Oklahoma is likely different than WV or OH or PA.  I'd seek professional guidance on this issue.  I am certainly not qualified to render an opinion on the matter.

I suppose that is a possibility but more likely there are those who know that drilling is eminent (from reviewing permit applications) or they can see that a producing well is online and have evaluated the production data (publicly available) from the well enough to form and opinion as to the ultimate reserves. 

Cash is king to E&P companies and most would rather pay you a percentage of the ultimate find rather than try to buy you out initially.  That second option requires more $ and as I said earlier "cash is king" so they would likely not choose to do that but yes it is possible.

My opinion of groups/companies/shops whatever you want to call them who are offering to buy your minerals is they are looking for uninformed owners who see dollar signs and suddenly lose perspective of what they hold.  There are so many factors that go into determining the value of minerals that it's very difficult for them to know exactly what they have and certainly attempting to value that unknown is then nearly impossible.  The buyers are holding all the cards and they simply want to make money.  

Here is a scenario to consider...........  Mineral owner is aging male/female with needs from healthcare to basic survival and has little to no money but owns minerals that were passed down from descendants long ago.  At 70 years old they may have 10 years left they may have days who knows.  The kids are deadbeats who have milked them for all they are worth their whole lives and have personal lives that are a tragedy of errors and bad decisions and maintain little to no relationship with the aging mineral owner so why leave it to them to squander on booze, drugs and trashy women.  Someone comes along and offers to pay them some real $ for what they own and they look at the alternatives of never seeing a penny to dying before they do see a penny and they jump at the chance and sacrifice the minerals to the sharks hunting value.  While my example may be extreme tell me in your part of the world how many people fit this exact scenario or some resemblance of it.  A lot I suspect.  In the end did the mineral owner make a bad choice?  I can't say they did cause at least they get something for asset and the deadbeat children get what they deserve which is NOTHING!

These companies that buy these minerals then package them up as a block and sell them to a host of investor groups who are looking for these types of assets all while making a tidy margin for themselves.  It's called capitalism!

Make sense?

The Square Headed unit is pretty inactive in fact I think it is dead, at least that the way it smells.