I’m trying to verify if the interest shown on a Division Order is correct. As I understand it, I will need the number of acres in the drilling and/or spacing unit in order to calculate this. (A side question: Do the terms “drilling unit” and “spacing unit” mean the same thing?)
The property is in Texas.
I have the Property Name, the County of location, the API #, and the Legal Description. Using the Texas Railroad Commission’s website, how can I find out how many acres are in the Drilling Unit for a particular API #?
Look up well by API, top right. Click on “Lease” link once the well pops up. Go to the bottom and look for attachments, select the one that says “Plat”. That should have a plat of the acreage.
It’s possible that your well is an allocation well and in that case the DO decimal will be based on the % of the total length in your tract times your decimal in that tract.
Alternatively just tell me the API and I’ll look it up. Somebody else might have a better answer, the RRC seems kinda suboptimal to me.
Thanks for your reply NMoilboy. By allocation well am I correct that you are referring to a horizontal drill that could pass through areas of more than one mineral deed owned by multiple owners? Mine is a vertical well. Also do the terms “drilling unit” and spacing unit" mean the same thing?
Spacing unit and drilling unit mean the same thing to me. Yeah allocation well would be a horizontal well passing through multiple tracts that are not pooled.
Vertical wells should be pretty easy you just need to find the plat.
RRC sets field rules for spacing of wells from lease lines. RRC website online has link to field rules across the state. There are also density rules, so a larger acreage unit can have multiple wells. The unit may be a pooled unit of multiple smaller tracts or it could be a lease unit if everyone owns a percentage within the same tract. Look at the plat and related documents for both completion report and the permit. The plats could vary. Look at the recorded DPU in deed records if it is a pooled unit.
Thanks for your replies, NMoilboy. I’ve gone to the RRC link you provided in your first reply … and got lost in the amount of info. I did see that the well is in the Field Name of “Goldsmith Clear Fork”
Does “Field Name” mean the same as Drilling Unit or Spacing Unit??
From there I just get lost so I’ll take you up on your offer to look up using the API number which is 42-135-39602.
To verfiy that the interest shown on the Division Order is correct I understand the formula to use is:
lessor’s acres in a unit / total # of acres in the unit x lessor’s ownership interest x lessor’s royalty %, so that’s why I’m trying to see if the well in the API above is in a unit and, if so, what the total # of acres is in that unit.
And in that formula, by “lessor’s acres in a unit” am I correct that means the lessor’s “Gross” acres and not the Net acres since later in the formula “lessor’s ownership interest” is used?
Ok, yeah that one looks like it might be a bit confusing. Sec 18 looks to be broken up into 5 different leases. This well is in the SW/4 of the section. 161.25 acres. Parker Minerals 18E lease.
Field name is not the same as drilling unit or spacing unit. It just means its in the Goldsmith oil field, in the ClearFork formation. I actually think its producing from both the San Andres and Clearfork and is commingled. Been online since like 2010 in the Clearfork (deeper) and San Andres since 2014.
Yeah your decimal should just be your acres divided by 161.25 times your royalty.
NMoilboy, is what you sent the plat? (Where did you find this? Is it from the Texas Railroad Commission’s website ……. in their GIS mapping?)
Do I understand that the dashed lines indicate the boundaries of the 5 different leases (A, B, C, D, & E) that occur in Section 18 ……. and it just so happens that 3 of the 5 leases happen to cover the same areas as 3 of the quarter sections in Section 18?
If the above is true, then how do you know what the size of the Drilling Unit (that I use to calculate my Division Order Interest) is? Is it the same size as the area covered by the Lease as it’s shown on the plat? In this particular case instead of being called a “Drilling Unit” is it called a “Lease Unit” whose number of acres would be used in the formula for the Division Order Interest?
In general, is a Drilling Unit the same size as the area covered by a Lease (unless there’s Pooling or Unitization, which gets into another, more complex, set of numbers)? And does the wording “ 161.25 Acres, Parker Minerals 18E” that appears at the bottom of the SW1/4 of Section 18 on the plat mean that the Drilling Unit (or Lease Unit??) where my well (18E-06) is located contains 161.25 acres ……… and that Drilling Unit just happens to be the same size as the SW 1/4 of Section 18?
The API NUMBER of my well (4213539602) corresponds with the WELL NAME of 18E-6, which means it’s the 6th well that has been drilled in the Drilling (or Lease?) Unit named 18E. Is that correct?
In your statement of “Your decimal should just be your acres divided by 161.25 times your royalty”, by “your acres” does that mean my Net Acres (which is the Gross Acres contained in the legal description in my Mineral Deed multiplied by my “undivided interest” as listed on my Mineral Deed) ?
So in this particular instance my Division Order interest would be:
[ My NET acres (calculated by the info listed in my Mineral Deed) / 161.25 (the number of acres in the Drilling/Lease Unit) ] x my royalty as listed in my lease with an oil company. Am I correctly understanding this?
NMoilboy … my reply to you (about the plat and additional info you posted) bounced back to me for some reason, so I posted my reply again (I think that was on Feb. 19) just to confirm that I understood the info you sent and that I now fully understand how to accurately calculate my Division Order interest for the well who’s API number I gave. Have you by chance had chance to see that post and are my statements correct? Just trying to make sure before I execute the Division Order.
And Mikro1TX, thanks to you for sending a copy of the W1 form concerning my well. Much appreciated!
Thanks again for your very helpful response, NMoilboy. Using the formula listed in our most recent exchange, the interest I calculated did agree with the interest shown on the Division Order I received from the operator.
I very much appreciate the time you took to respond to my postings on this topic … and thanks to the others who also responded, including Tennis Daze, and Mikro1TX. The community within Mineral Rights Forum is a great resource!
