I was contacted by an investment group wanting to buy the mineral rights to 50 acres in Section 6, 18N, 9W. How would one go about determining the value of the mineral rights associated with that property?
The reason you are getting offers is that there are pending hearings before the OCC to drill a horizontal well on that acreage. Various companies send out cold call offers in those sorts of cases offering low ball offers in order to pick up acreage. No problem in that. That is their business. Your job is to get the best you can for your acreage and that may mean holding onto it, especially is you have potential heirs. Read the last six months of discussions on this forum to get a feel for the activity in the area. Look up the investor presentations for Newfield, Marathon, Chisholm, Continental Resources, Devon, Staghorn, Chaparral, etc to see what they are telling their investors. Get a good understanding of what is going on in the area and understand the potential for future wells, not just one.
There are not a lot of horizontal wells in that township yet, but one was just drilled in section 7. Only had 20 bbls oil and a lot of water, so terrible for a horizontal well. Might have had bad geology or a bad completion. There were MUCH better ones in the southern part of the township.
You can contact a registered petroleum engineer to give you a value. You can estimate from other wells nearby. You can hold off and see if you get other offers, you can search out offers. You do not have to sell all of it or any of it. You are in the beginning stages of any negotiations. I have minerals nearby and have seen my offers triple over the last year or so. Not selling anything in Blaine or Kingfisher.
We have wells in the south, Sections 29 and 31 and so far have had offers up to $15,000/nma but not selling at present. I would expect offers to go higher. A horizontal well was completed 6 months ago and 3 more wells are planned. That might give you a starting point for negotiations if you decide to sell.