My wife received a pooling order for 30 acres of mineral rights she possesses in Grady County that was dated 2/12/19. The applicant is Roan Resources, Inc. She sent a letter indicating her election to receive $4000 per acre and a 1/5th total royalty. She allowed sufficient time to receive her payment. Made several calls and left voice mail messages during the summer months. The company has never responded.
On November 15th, she sent certified letters to the Roan oilman, Rick Silman and the attorney representing Roan, Charles Helm. She again asked for the status of her payment and the results of their production. Proof of receipt of these certified letters were signed on November19, 2019.
As of December 10th, neither the Roan nor their attorney have made any attempts to contact my wife. Please provide any advice you may have on how to get in contact with these gentlemen and encourage them to make the payment as outlined in the order.
Thank you!
Roan Resources, Inc. (NYSE: ROAN) (“Roan” or the “Company”) today announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by Citizen Energy Operating, LLC (“Citizen Energy”), an affiliate of Warburg Pincus LLC (“Warburg Pincus”), in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.0 billion, including Roan’s funded net debt of approximately $780 million as of September 30, 2019. The transaction is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2019 or the first quarter of 2020, subject to Roan stockholder approval, regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
Roan is running a bit behind due to the coming merger. Send another certified letter requesting payment again. Be sure and put the case number and the order number in the letter.
Pooling Orders only mean the operators have an “obligation” to pay. Maybe your interest was pooled for curative reasons. Is your interest HBP by the older well that is in the section and the lease your mineral interest is subject to hasn’t expired? There may be reasons that your interest is not entitled to receive any bonus consideration and those need to be explained and substantiated with documentation if that is the case.
We have been able to contact the attorney’s office and they confirmed there are many outstanding claims for them to address. But we are getting close to a year since the orginal court order came down with the pooling order instructing Roan to pay the $4000 per acre plus royalties. This amounts to a minimum of $120K my wife should have received to invest in some other way. Like in the stock market that has been on a run. Short of legal means, which we want to avoid, are you aware of any penalty fees that should be paid from a company for the lost opportunity to invest these monies? A simple CD would have earned approx. $3K since the time of the order. Quadruple or more if invested in the stock market. Is there any recourse?
Are you sure you have clear title and are in fact, owed the bonus money? As I stated above, the pooling order is only an “obligation” for the operator to pay. Therefore, I doubt there is any recourse or penalty for lack of payment of bonus money.
Unfortunately there appears to be no damages for failure to promptly pay pooling order bonus money in Oklahoma. Also Todd Baker is correct, lack of proof of title (most often due to un-probated estate) is a valid cause to withhold until issues are resolved.