Received a certified letter from Continental Land on behalf of Gungoll for very small mineral interest in this section. Says they are planning a test well. Lease has expired and letter offers several options including participation. Letter includes a W-9 form. Letter doesnt say the section has been pooled. There is no lease form. I am a bit confused but this looks like a disingenuous attempt to look like the section has been pooled when it hasnt. Have not received any mailings from OCC.
Most likely that is a Well Proposal Letter. It should give the total well costs, location, options to lease or to
participate. The W-9 is so they can provide you the lease bonus should you choose one of those options.
Gungoll pooled section 16-5N-7W in April of 2022. You can find it under case 202200689 to read the terms and compare to your letter. You can ignore the letter as it is just the first round of information. You can lease with Gungoll or wait for other offers or wait for a pooling. Other companies are in the area leasing. HIghest posted royalty is 1/4th. No other cases for section 17 are listed yet, so there is some time.
Thank you Todd. I think you are 100% correct. I suppose that Gungoll has some legal responsibility to offer participation to non leased royalty owners and that is why the letter was sent certified and why the W-9 was included. While the letter “requests” that royalty owners select one of four options, it does not say that other options are available and certainly implies otherwise. I find that to be somewhat deceptive and I am confident that many royalty owners will simply sign and return without knowing they have options.
We only have a very small interest in this section so it probably wont not matter much for us, but hopefully others will read this post and Martha’s reply and realize that they have alternatives which may offer them better economic terms.
Thanks for the reply. I havent been able to find the case you cited. Since the OCC changed their case management system, I have had difficulty finding anything. I registered as a user and logged in but cant find any cases with the number you referenced. Is there some trick to using the site that I havent yet discovered?