My sibs and I recently inherited some vacant land in CA along with an old Oil and Gas lease my Grandpa took out in the 40’s with the BLM. Various oil companies have drilled there over the years so the land is sort of a mess, and now we are trying to understand what exactly our lease means: what rights the current oil company has to use our land, and what, if anything, we can do with the land in addition to the oil. The royalty seems very small compared to what others are getting today (1.5%), and since we’re under the same original contract I don’t know if we can negotiate something different?
Is anyone else in this same situation? I’d love to hear what you’ve done with your land, and if you’ve been able to negotiate a higher royalty.