Hello,
My name is Tom and I'm in Houston, Texas. My parents passed away and I inherited a small royalty interest in a well located in Eagle-Ford. This is an old well that my Dad had been getting a small royalty check from back in the1970s. I now get the royalty check via a division order.
I have been trying to find out the origin of this RI because the royalty interest is a very strange percentage that I think must be calculated on something such as an acre/pool. It is not some normal looking percentage such as 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 etc. I've have scoured the Texas Railroad Commission website to no avail.
The RI is: 0.001114500. Strange number to hand out. I am thinking it might be an acre in a pool of 897 acres, 1/RI.
If it is a RI based on an acre then if I am part of a pool there are currently 2 fracking wells nearby and 6 or so more that have been permitted.
How do I find out the origins of this royalty interest? The probate lawyer did get me signed over to the company handling the division order and I have written them many times but no response and the driller wont answer any questions unless I sell it to them first. Which is a losing prospect for me. Many companies have sent me letters wanting to buy this tiny RI which makes me think the original RI deal is connected to a pool which contains many higher producing fracking wells coming online. My dad was a landman in the 1970s and my guess is that the Moczygemba family gave him this RI.
Thank you all for reading/listening
Here is the complete information:
My dad's full name was: William Earl McAndrews Jr.
KARNES COUNTY, TEXAS
MOCZYGEMBA, J.S.
LEASE 033452
API 255-00920
DISTRICT 2
FIELD PANNA MARIA (EDWARDS)
OPERATOR PRIDE ENERGY COMPANY
DIVISION ORDER NGL CRUDE LOGISTICS LLC
RI 0.001114500
Thank you!
I'm guessing it has something to do with this document. I haven't looked into it or anything, but I would bet this is the source of the Royalty Interest.
1402-WEMcAndrewsJr.pdf (351 KB)
Texas Tea! Thank you so much! That is exactly what I have been searching for. And I wont lie, I teared up a bit seeing my Dad's name. Miss him so much. I was just a knee high squirt when he got that contract for $10 bucks back in the 60s. Great piece of family history you have given me. Thank you.
The contract looks like it was good for 15 years if the property remained idle but remains good even to today if the property wasn't idle. Since there has been a producing well to this day I am guessing the contract is still good? And I own royalties covering 294.6 acres in Eagle/Ford?
Tom McAndrews
Texas Tea,
Where/how did you find that document? Thanks!
Tom, you're welcome! Glad I could help. And sorry I'm just getting around to responding, I've been out of the office all day.
Yes, the deed is good for 15 years and as long thereafter as oil and/or gas is produced. If I go to the Texas Railroad Commission Website (they govern oil and gas production in Texas), I can't find anything about a well on this property, however, their records only go back till the early 90's. But if you are still getting royalty checks on this, I would assume that all or part of this deed is still in affect.
Where this property is located appears to be a good area in the Eagle Ford Shale in Karnes County, however, it appears no Eagle Ford wells have been drilled on this property to date. I have attached a few maps of this property. One is an overlay of a Tobin map over the Texas RRC map. As you see (and probably already know) there are a lot of wells in the area, but none covering these 294.6 acres.
To find the deed, I just search "W McAndrews" in Karnes Co. on countyrecords.com. It's an online deed records pay site.
Let me know if you have any questions!
P.S. I also had made a more detailed, close-up picture of your tract on a Tobin map, but the picture is too large to attach on these forums. If you're interested, you can send me your email on here or via friend request and I'll send it your way.
1400-McAndrews.tif (1.53 MB)
1401-McAndrewsII.tif (1.72 MB)
Texas Tea, thanks for the response. My email is: tgm2008 @ comcast.net
You've opened up a number of questions for me. How did you get the coordinates from that old contract? When it describes the tracts of land it only mentions stuff about being close to this and that oak tree. Also, the well that I get a payment from is API 255-00920, lease id 033542. From your post I take it that this well is not located in the 294 acre tract of land? If not, then where does the contract for this well API 255-00920 originate?
Tom
Tom,
I emailed you the map docs. I based the location off of reading the old legal description and platting out the tract of land on the map. Also, if you notice on the legal description, it calls the 'FIRST TRACT' as "being Block No. 18" and the 'SECOND TRACT' as "the Western part of Block 17". If you look at the more detailed map I just sent you, you will notice the 18 and the 17 in the top right corner of the tracts. On 17, it actually shows it on the property to the east - the 108.54 ac. tract.
I'm just now looking at the API# that you just sent and I actually never looked at that in your original post. I just figured that the deed I sent you had to be the one, because it was the only one I found. The property that the well is located on is actually not on the deed I originally sent you. I attached a map with where the well you receive checks on is located. It's the red spider looking thing that you can barely see under the layers of map. I'll look into that well and property and get back with you. It does look like that well in some form or fashion has been producing for a long while (1965ish).
1399-McAndrewsIII.tif (1.72 MB)
Thanks Texas Tea! Below is a link of the well (API 255-00920) and some original documents. Toward the bottom of the link is a crude map of the pool (669 acres) that shows the well (upper right corner). From looking at the pool drawing/schematic the 294 acre tract might be included in that pool. If so, and the well has been operational since the late 1960s, then wouldn't the contract for the royalty interest of the 294 acre tract still be valid because it has always been in a pool with a producing well?
http://76.77.153.41/esd-rrc/index.php?_module_=esd&_action_=viewimage&id=8IbEtqq6TD4.&oversized=0&profile
Tom
Tom,
Yup, that's it! I just couldn't find/didn't really look for the pooled unit, but looks like you got it! Those two 'M. A. Najvar' tracts are your two tracts, so they are pooled into the 669.95 acre unit. So, mystery solved.
Yes, that deed would still be valid as long as that well keeps producing. And potentially an Eagle Ford well could be drilled on that same tract as well and you would receive production from that/those wells. This would all depend on the language in the original lease in which your father was assigned an interest. There are items sometimes included in leases called horizontal and vertical pugh clauses. You can research that but basically it would release the lease as to portions of the lease acreage that are not producing. Vertical would potentially release lands that are at different depths below or above the producing formation (ie Eagle Ford Shale) and horizontal would release lands that were not included in a unit. For example, if the lease had a horizontal pugh clause, the 54 acres on the west side of the 194 acre tract would be released because it was not included in a unit. Thus if a new well was drilled on that portion of the property, you would not own an interest (if the lease had a horizontal pugh clause).
Sorry if that was confusing, but that's a brief primer on the subjects. Hope it helps.
Texas Tea! That's great news. What a wild ride. I go from thinking I have 294 acres to realizing the deed is expired and then back to knowing the deed is still good due to being in a pool with that one old well that has been working since the 1960s spurting out small amounts of oil/gas. That little pissant well saved me!
Hope you don't mind more questions?
- How can I get the GIS maps at the RRC website to show blocks?
- How can I overlay the pool diagram onto the GIS maps to see if any wells are located in the pool?
- How can I see/find pools in general?
- Do you think the old pool drawing I showed you from the 1960s is still valid, the same shape, same size?
- Is it possible the sections of the 294.6 acres that are not in that particular pool could possibly be part of anther pool that I don't know about?
Thanks so much for your time. You've really have put a lot of effort into this for me and I greatly appreciate it.
PS. There are also some 3,000 acres of 1/8 royalty interests deeds from the 1930s from my Grandfather in the Permian Basin I may need to post up about down the road in a new post. (Dickerson survey, Lazo survey, Zunigas survey, Valdez survey, etc.) As far s I have read these deeds have no expiration clause.
Tom
Yea, in this situation, being held by production saved you! I'll do my best to answer.
- The RRC GIS maps are typically not very detailed. They wouldn't show the different blocks that the land or the minerals might have been subdivided into. For those, you would need a more detailed ownership map, like the portions of the one I sent you. The RRC GIS Map typically only shows abstracts and surveys.
- I just did that for you and attached it. There's the Maurer-McFarland Unit 1H just off the South. It looks like they originally or mistakenly permitted the well to run through your interest, but repermitted it to stop just off the property line and drilled it. The one that ran through your property was permitted in 2012 and never drilled.
- You can do this by looking at the RRC GIS map for newer wells or look in the Karnes County for Declarations of Pooled Units for new and older wells.
- Without doing research to confirm, I would assume that is still the shape and size.
- Anything is possible, but it does not appear so based on the attached map.
If you want to post or email me what you got in the permian, I'll look into it, time permitting.
1398-MoczygembaUnitRRCOverlay.tif (573 KB)
Hey Texas Tea! Apologize for not getting back sooner to your response to all my questions. And thank you very much for the overlay map of the pool onto the blocks and RCC GIS map.
From looking at the map that you created for me with the pool overlay and looking at the RCC GIS map viewer it appears to me, besides the known well 25500920, that within the pool there are 4 permitted wells and one producing oil well by Marathon Oil EF. I can't seem to get much information on the permitted wells such as dates and by which company.
This brings up a couple of questions. Do the permitted wells constitute activity within the pool that would keep my royalty interest deed valid? And does Marathon Oil EF owe me money for their producing well?
I sure do appreciate all your help Texas Tea. I'd still be on the starting line looking at the colored dots on the RCC GIS viewer scratching my head.
Tom