I live in VA but have an interest in oil wells in Tyler County, WV..I got a letter today (7-16-15) from a Jeremiah Campbell, Landman, of Pittsburgh, PA wanting to buy up to 50% interest in my interest and the parcel must be 20 acres or larger.

I do not want to sell my mineral rights at this time. Does anyone know of his Jeremiah Campbell?  

Thank you,

Edgar Cross

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Edgar, you've probably just received a mass mailing.  There are quite a few companies sending out letters to people they think own mineral rights in West Virginia.  He's probably a legitimate buyer, but it's hard to say for sure.  I am an attorney, all I do is oil and gas work, and I haven't heard of him yet.  Does he work for a company, or was it just his name on the letter?

Hi Edgar ... Are your wells in Tyler County in and producing?  If you are earning cash flow, why would you want to sell?   The Landman is fishing ... he doesn't even reference your actual acreage. Please do not sell 50% of your mineral rights.  My family in Tyler County has owned the land for the past 200 years. You hang onto your minerals and keep them for your kids. You may 'lease' them ... but never Sell them. There is a difference.

My side of the Family is now using Kyle to help us with the legal aspects of the Leases we signed 3 years ago.  We should have used Kyle, 3 years ago, but didn't know what we didn't know and didn't know Kyle. We know him now ... don't make our mistake.  Contact him and when you need him to review a lease before you sign it ... you will have an Attorney on your side.

I also have a good Researcher that works with Tyler County Heirs and helps with the maze of information.  Researchers work for the Families ... Landmen work for the Oil Companies. Researchers and Attorneys are both professionals and are paid accordingly and are worth the money. We have found out, from our researcher, that we are not getting our legal share of royalties as stated by the Landman.  The researcher uncovered this error ... after the fact. 

Now, we have Kyle.  The Oil and Gas Mineral rights are very important and you want them done right. It doesn't do much good to shut the barn door after the horses have run off. 

Suzy:

Thank you for the great information. This is pretty much my family's story (apparently my grand-parents owned a farm in Tyler County in 1935 and the wells are on this land). I have always thought that this was a "birth right" given to my cousins and me by my grandparents and that I should never sell the mineral rights.

I agree with you on that point. I wish we had know Kyle, too. I may need to get the information on your researcher in the near future, too.

Thak you,

Edgar Cross

Hi Edgar, I am attaching a document I received from Tyler county Clerk on how to download the Tyler old records. The first part shows how to view newer records. I was told a week or so ago that the Tyler County Commission is thinking about adding credit card capability for the website. If they approve that, then people can download records (deeds, leases, wills, lots of things). Meanwhile you can at least see what you can find.

If you want,I can help you maybe figure out where your interests are. The easiest thing, is if you have information in your records about the API number of the well(s). This starts with 095- the prefix for Tyler. Then 0xxxx for the rest of the well number. If you have that I can give you several things to do to find where they are. If not, maybe there are things to do (I would start with calling the Tyler assessor's office and tell them what is on your tax bill and say you want the API numbers for the wells).

Something to start with anyway.

Please ask if you have more questions or want more ideas. There is a law in WV about a well that has not produced in 2 years, that it needs to be plugged. You are getting near that time. Not something you do but somebody is thinking about it, I expect.

Attachments:

Thank you soooo much for your offer to help!  I have a million questions!  1.  Info on API #47-095-02803. 2.  How do I get a well plugged?  3. Can you give me names of researchers or do you do research?  4. Can you send me that info about old Tyler records?  5.  Could I contact you by phone, e-mail, or regular mail as I am completely ignorant of the internet, I just stumbled onto your info?  I live in Texas so it is even harder for me to get any info about Tyler Co.  Thanks a million!  Patricia Nye

Hi Patricia,

Here is the link to the Tyler Co. website

Go to the bottom of the page to find "Document Inquiry"

This should be for documents from maybe the mid 1990s to the present.

If you know of a document book and page (for example Deed Book 15 page 20) you can do an "Image Search" (look at the icons at the top).

If you need something older and don't have the exact book and page, you need to do a "Vault Search". This gets more complicated. If you get that far and want further suggestions, ask again.

You can look at most of these documents online. If you want to get copies, you can set up an account (see top icons - New Account). I haven't done this in awhile so don't know if there is anything tricky here. If you have trouble the Help icon has some help, and the Contact icon shows who to call in Tyler Co.

I'll start another post about the well API number.

Website for the West Virginia Office of Oil and Gas database for wells 

On the left is a list of things available. Look down to "Data Base and Map Information. Under that is the Oil and Gas Map Search. If you select this, a website with a map of WV shows up. On the lower left are tabs. The first one (to the left) is "Attribute Search". Here you put in the API number. For the one you listed, use "95-02803" and click "Search". You'll see a blue circle. Carefully zoom in, and recenter the map as needed. If you get close enough you'll see that this is in Ellsworth district. If you zoom far enough you'll see the path of this well, going south and a little east from the blue circle which is where the well pad is, where the drilling starts and goes way down in the earth along that orange path.

If you go back to that link, go to "Search for Oil and Gas Permits". On that website, you use the whole API number without hyphens. You'll find that this well has not been drilled yet but a permit has been issued and other things have happened and are recorded on this list.

One more useful site related to wells and permits: Downloads site, Tyler Co.

If you go there (Tyler already selected), scroll down until you find that API number. There are 2 documents that you can find for this, and they are downloadable. One is a plat which should show the path of the proposed horizontal leg of the well, and some information about the mineral owners involved.

About getting a well plugged, that is beyond anything I have had to do. Usually it is a company who owns a well, and the company or the group of individuals who make up the company (working interest owners, not royalty owners) are the ones who need to pay for plugging a well. Sometimes an old well is used by someone who lives on the property, for "house gas", and sometimes the company deeds the well to that homeowner, and then that person needs to plug. That is rare. The person asking in the post from a few years ago probably didn't own interest in the old well, but mineral interest. A lease would have been involved earlier on, for that old well to have been drilled. The lease stays in effect, generally, as long as oil and/or gas are produced (or produced in paying quantities). When the well stops producing, and stays stopped for a certain amount of time, the lease runs out. There is more to this situation but it might not involve you.

I am glad to help you figure this out. Anything you want to do here on the website, ask questions about these things, I'll help you figure out how to use these websites.

Who is your researcher?

Kyle:

Only his name was on the paper. We (my cousins and I) got royalty checks from Petro Edge Energy in 2013 but none in 2014. I found out on this site several months ago that Petro Edge sold out to Shell Oil (StatOil). I wrote both companies but have never received a response.

Did you attend the meetig at the 4-H Center in New Martinsville in June?  I did get a letter from StatOil but Rocky Mount is about 20 miles south of Roanoke, VA and it was just too far to drive up to New Martinsville for this meeting.

Anything you can provide me about StatOil is also appreciated. my other cousines are at a loss for not hearing anything from these companies. We own the mineral rights to some wells and I am still trying to learn the location, etc., of these wells.

Thank you for your good and informative response.

Edgar Cross

Hi Edgar ... You're in good hands.  Nancy Mosley is the top Researcher for families in Tyler County in my opinion. And Kyle kicks ass with the Oil Companies.  Nancy has done so much work for our Family !  Without her ... we wouldn't have a clue. Email me direct if you need me, since I am not always in here.  suzy@suzybuck.com 

thanks for the tip that StatOil is Shell Oil.

Another tip we have all learned ... we can all lose our Birthright ... if we don't pay the mineral rights taxes on the farms ... even if Tyler County can't find the Heirs in order to send a bill ... or for the Heirs to even know there is such a thing as mineral taxes and that we own some parcel ... somewhere ... that we had no clue we owned. It's a mess.  Other people can come in and buy up the mineral rights by paying the taxes in default. 

Thanks so much for the info! Patricia 

Interested in selling minerals... have 3.271 acres... please contact me at 304-758-0811

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