I was recently approached by CWEI to begin construction on 2 wells on some of my property that they have under lease NE of Caldwell. I have two leases on this property, one that was signed in 1990 and a second for a different area that was signed in 2001. My question relates to the "water use" clauses in this leases. When these leases were executed there was no fracing taking place and the water use was much less than that required by current fracturing processes. In the course of signing a new damage waiver with CWEI for the pad construction, they also sent an Affidavit of Right to Produce Ground Water. This got my attention. I have heard rumors of landowners being paid for their water to be used for the fracturing, but I had assumed due to the original lease language that CWEI had the rights to the water already, if so, why the need for the new water document? I would be very interested to hear anyones experience with this issue. Thanks!
Water rights belong to the holder of the surface rights - whereas the oil/gas belongs to the one holding the mineral rights. I assume you must own both the surface and mineral rights.
You need to get to a lawyer with your previous leases to find out what is what. Without seeing the language, nobody is going to be able to give good information here.