I have minerals in Kingfisher County described as: “All of the oil, gas and other minerals lying in, on and under the Southeast Quarter (SE/4) of the Northeast Quarter (NE/4) and Lot One of Section Four (4), Township Seventeen (17) North, Range Five (5) W.I.M.” I understand 1/4 of 160A but how is the lot size measured. There are several wells within the 640 A pool so what is my share of the acres?
You have to go back to the patent maps to start. Go to the Bureau of Land Managment. glorecords.blm.gov Click Search documents. Fill in LSR, Oklahoma and your township. You want the Master Title Plat
Click on Master Title Plat
Gives you the whole township. Watch out for rivers since they will move over time and acreage next to them frequently has newer surveys done by the operator.
Zoom into your section. Lot 1 is the NE4 of the NE4 and is not 40 acres. It is 46.17 acres. In your case, you have the east half of the NE4. Usually, that acreage would be 80 acres, but in this case it is 86.17 acres -gross. You may only have a portion of those acres if they have come down through several generations with multiple siblings. The net acres would be determined by any probates, affidavits of heirship, etc. That would leave you with some percentage of the acres.
Also note that for irregular sections like this, they may be spaced at 640, but they are not actually 640 acres. See the lots 1, 2, 3, and 4. This section is actually 667.2 which would be used in calculating the Division Order decimal. The northern tier and western tier of sections in each township usually have adjustments for the curvature of the earth.
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In addition to that, one must examine the title to to determine if any share has been deeded to or inherited by another.
YES, it can get very complicated. Last year when I was looking sell there were a couple offers, two landmen researched the records, one for me and one for a purchaser and both botched the job. They assumed a lot and didn’t follow the deeds. Both gave seriously flawed opinions on various rights in a couple of counties. Both were recommended by reputable petroleum professionals and I just hope no one else got referrals for these guys. In the end someone who knew what he was doing did a comprehensive search and found some very bad things. Found that one section had been sold off partially many years ago, Another section had an agreement that said when production ceased the rights would revert to a previous land owners. There were other problems but needless to say all of these discrepancies meant that the mineral rights were worth far less than expected, less than half. Moral to the story, until you really know what you have LEGALLY, you don’t know what you have which makes valuing the minerals accurately impossible.
Thank you Martha, your info continues to grow my library of references. Using the 84.16 A (my area) and the section acreage of 667.2 as used by the operator yields the division order fraction we are due. One comes close but cannot exactly replicate the DO without recognizing the odd size. Interesting, the OK PUN number just references 640 A. It is great for me as an owner to exactly calculate and confirm the DO fraction. In a related fashion I looked at the details of a well drilled in 1966 which ended up in the North Lincoln Unit and determined that the DO fraction on that well is based on 86.17, rather than the usual 80A spacing. My understanding for years from my dad was that the well was drilled “with 80A spacing”. Thanks again! ADS
It is normal to use the “80”, “160”, “320” or “640” spacing in the OCC documents-keeps their paperwork simpler. For the sections that lie along the northern tier (1-6) or western tier (6,7,18,19,30,31), the lots were adjusted for the curvature of the earth back when the surveyed at patent. That is the first place I look to get the acreage calculations for the Division Order. (I also check to see if there are rivers as they also have calculated river lots. Those can change over time.) I have made note of the irregular lots in my files so my heirs will not have to look them up all over again.
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