Hello folks. I am so new to all this it ain’t funny. So here is the deal.
In 2016 a relative passed (God bless) and left mineral rights in Reeves County, Texas to me and my niece. We found this out from a royalties company named Marke Exploration. They lied to me and tried to lowball me ($1000) to get my rights. I saw through this and immediately turned them down.
Since then I have discovered that another of my relatives has gotten her trust fund from the oil company and has since been placed in the hospital and cannot be contacted. So I am trying to find out who the oil company is that is operating on the property and has the trust. I have worked on a rig before in the late 70s early 80s, so I am not completely oblivious, but a lot has changed. So people, HELP!
It looks like PDC Energy and Noble both operate wells in that section. Depending on the location of your minerals, you can be in some or all of them. Do you have a deed in your name or the deed in your relative? Oil companies do a good job of researching title and will have information up to the last name in chain of title. You can contact these companies through royalty owner relations. You can also look at Reeves County Tax Assessor website for your cousin’s name to see which well(s) she is being taxed on. The online deed records in your cousin’s name will give you a good legal description.
Oklahoma has a similar system. www.okcountyrecords.com. Most of the counties are listed. The ones that are not usually have their own. It is free to look, but costs a little bit to join to print. You may want to join for a month at a higher level and then print everything off that you need and not join the next month.
If I have a complicated description with long aliquots, I read them from right to left and that helps. For example, if it says 1/2 undivided interest in the S2 NW4 SE4 SW4 11-1N-1W, I start with 1N-1W as that is the township. Then section eleven which near the upper right hand corner. It usually has 640 acres. Then the SW4 would have 160 acres, then the SE4 of that would have 40 acres. Then the NW4 would have 10 acres, the the south half of that would be five acres. One half undivided interest would be 2.5 acres of those four acres.
When you call the companies, ask for the Division Order analyst. Have the DO in hand, your grandmother’s name and address.
If you have OK properties, come back and I will give you the links to the Oklahoma corporation website for different types of information.
Here is the Railroad Commission’s current map of your area with Abstract 415 outlined in red. Lot of activity there.
You didn’t say which part of that section your mineral interest is in. If you are in the north half it looks like PDC Permian is the company you would want to contact. They have units there called the Buzzard North and South. If you are in the south half of Section 69 it looks like Noble Energy would be logical to contact about their Laura Wilder unit.
Ok so my niece and I inherited these mineral rights in 1998. Chevron and Noble Energy are saying they have only been on there since 2018. So how do I find out the history of who has been drilling on the property?
If you look at Dusty’s map, there are no vertical wells on this tract. The horizontal wells are quite recent. The map is from the RRC GIS Viewer. You can go on the RRC website - select GIS Viewer - and enter the County, Section and Block. It will show you all the wells drilled, not just the producing wells. You can find the API and RRC lease numbers and research the production.
