I receive small royalties from an old well passed down by my family. Can anyone tell me how to get information on this well, such as when it was drilled and the area covered? Finding a copy of the original lease or perhaps finding the original application to the state for drilling would be great, but I'm not sure how to proceed.
The well is in Garvin County, Sec 33-T1N-R3W, and is designated on the royalty statement as Tussy Deese Unit -Plains Tract.
Call the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. They will answer your questions. Get acquainted with their website where you can get answers. Take a trip to Pauls Valley to get acquainted with the Garvin County Clerk who will help you find a copy of the original filed lease.
Hi Art,
Go to http://occpermit.com/wellbrowse/ to find information on this well. You will find a treasure trove of information (like a genealogy project). As far as getting the lease, you might have success by contacting the current purchaser. Newer leases, such as 1991 and younger, can be accessed on line in most OK counties.
Hi Art, I just looked this information up. There are a large number of wells identified as "Tussy Deese Unit" or similar. If you have the additional information on location, you can narrow this down (ie, quarter section, such as SE SE SE or similar).
Art,
That is not actually "A well". It is a group of wells in several units that have been unitized and basically treated as one well. Links below are the documents on it. Now the original lease would be for a much smaller part, usually several years before. There would be a well(s) that would have held that original lease (usually several years) until it was unitized. Unitization is usually used for secondary recovery.
Plan Of Unitization Look starting page 40 at the tracts and descriptions.
Thanks to all for the information. Judy, I live in Minnesota, so a trip to Pauls Valley is not an easy one. Your advice is well taken. It’s very difficult to follow things from so far away, but I need to do better.
B Haney, I went to the suggested web site, but there is no well number, etc to fill in the blanks. I will have to try again to see where I went wrong. It wouldn’t search for me, but you obviously know how to make it talk. More good suggestions. As it turns out, my confusion was with the unitization. As you noted, and as Rick Howell explained in more detail, Tussy Deese is multiple wells, which I did not realize, and that starts making sense of the whole thing.
Rick, the attachments you provided really cleared up the basics for me. The unitization occurred in 1969. I found the ratification statements (in your attachments) of my grandfather and other family members. There were 49 “tracts” in the original unit, but no Plains Tract. Must have been some consolidation or other changes later on, so I still don’t know exactly what Plains Tract includes. As far as a lease is concerned, would there necessarily have been a lease prior to the unitization scooping up various parcels of land? I may yet need to define Plains Tract.
Rick Howell, I really appreciate your effort to provide those attachments. Were they available from the OCC web site?
And one more thing, if I may. The reason I’m curious about Tussy Deese is that I recently received a letter from the operator, indicating that they are “in the process of separating the Plains Tracts in which you’re being paid on a unit basis”. They want to “pay each tract by revenue interest rather than by unit share”. Can someone explain what this means and the effect on mineral owners? Is the operator breaking up the existing unitization?
I asked this question on the general forum, but no one responded.
Thank you all again.
Art, Sorry, didn't notice you were so very far away. If you still want to see the original lease, you can call the Garvin County Clerk, who can put you in touch with a landman who can be hired at a small charge to look up the original lease for you.
Be reminded the Oklahoma Corporation Commission by phone will gladly help you by providing all kinds of information including the well number to help you search the website.
Art, go to the OCCPERMIT site (link that you tried already). You don't need all the information. If you try to search with only the section - township - range information, you will see this is a busy section. You can sort by the well names (click the header) - many listing with a similar name.
If this is not working for you at all, you may be blocking popups on your computer, or have some other system issue.
This database is a wealth of information, so it's worth some effort to get it to work, as aggravating as that can sometimes be :). Virtually every document associated with the well, other than current production, and corp. commission orders, can be located here.
Judy is correct, you can call the OCC and get some help from them on using the site.
One of the unitizations we have an interest in has over 100 API numbers assigned.
Plains is likely referring to the purchaser of the oil. I've got one unitization that refers to Plains and Teppco Tracts. Plains has about 25% of the tract and Teppco has the remaining.
Yes, all of those links go to the OCC site.
Can't help you much here, but that is what it sounds like to me. I don't see how this can happen without an OCC order and I don't see an application. It is almost impossible for this to happen and not be some come out winners, and some come out losers in the deal.
Again, thank you for all who provided comments. I certainly never imagined that the OCC would answer random calls for assistance. I am going to spend some time until I figure out how to access for myself the information provided by this thread.
Rick, I found my parcels in the tract listing in the Unit Plan. Of course, it was not named "Plains Tract", so I'm not home free, but I sure know a lot more than I did before everyone's comments. Hope I don't get removed from royalty income in whatever new definitions come out of the operator changes. It raises some interesting questions not only about what they are doing, but how they might do it. Thanks again. Now I have a lot to do.
B Haney, my 30+ years of genealogy research has sure helped with courthouse work on mineral rights. It's just that I can't get down to Oklahoma often enough to keep up when new questions arise.