Oil & gas discussion group for those interested in Lea County, NM. Share your experience regarding lease bonus, royalty rates, drilling activity, and oil & gas news.
I didn’t dtart the group but where is NW?
Any leasing going on in 17S 39E. I have fractional minerals in 160 acres in Section 20 that I would like to lease.
It is surprising that no one has contributed to this Lea County NM discussion in almost a year. Yet Lea County stands as one of the most active areas in the Permian Basin. Hundreds of wells are drilled in the county annually.
It is distressing that not a single Landman has shown interest in this productive county.
Oh, yes I own mineral rights in sections 12 and 13 of T11S, R36E northeast of Tatum, NM.
Still, my interest goes beyond mineral ownership. I was raised on an oil lease in the Monument field. I also worked summer jobs for oil field contractors around Jal, Eunice, Hobbs, Lovington and the Caprock.
I know someone else must be interested in the drilling and leasing activity in Lea County, NM.
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Hi Glen,
Not sure about your area, but I have 2 properties in Lea Co. and both are currently leased and one is producing (T25 & 26S R 33E, leased in 2007). The other one is in T24 R34, leased in early 2011. For both of these landmen found me, I was not actively looking to lease at the time.
You may want to try calling some of the Landmen that have been doing leases in your area.
Thanks, Mr. Case.
With each Township being 36 sq miles, a quick calculation puts your property somewhere between Eunice and Jal and over 20 miles west of the Texas state line. You may be closer to the Eddy County line than the Texas State line.
The Eunice and Jal fields have been productive since the 1920s.
My property T11 R36E was leased in 2009 and will expire in 2014. For years, I have been the point of contact for this property which is part of my Grand Dad’s estate.
But after 38 years at the same address, I have moved with my wife to a senior retirement/assisted living center – new phone, new e-mail, and new address. Also, my sister passed away on the day I moved.
My first order of business is to ensure that my new address is recorded for public record. Naturally, I have informed the entity that holds the lease and to the landman who contacted me.
Still, recording a change of address in Lea County NM poses a problem. Back in 2005 when one of my cousins moved, I wrote the Lea County Clerk in Lovington about the change of address. The clerk replied that there was no way he could record address information about mineral rights but that he would give the information to abstract companies in Lovington.
I know, failure to record mineral holdings by Lea County officials makes no sense to me either. For example, I pay property taxes on a tiny fraction of mineral holdings for a producing gas well in Johnson County, Arkansas. I can’t imagine Lea County NM letting this potential source of revenue escape their clutches.
Thanks for the reply
I also got the mineral property that I have from my grandfather who got it from tax sales from about 1910 thru the 1950's. For a long time it was in a corporation. A few years ago I dissolved the corporation and transferred the property to my name via a Mineral Deed and therefore set the address correctly. If it would work for you, maybe you would want to put the property you have in a Trust and then record a new Deed showing this. My dad would record new deeds to correct errors in previous deeds, maybe just record a new (updated) deed with your new address? Also, I have all my mineral property related contacts use a PO box that I have at a UPS Store (not USPS) which I always plan to keep no matter where I live. I was in Washington state (where my PO Box is) and 4 years ago I moved to California. I still have my PO Box and I just have them forward me my mail every 2 weeks.
You are right it is important to have the landmen be able to contact you!
And your calculations are correct, my producing property is 21.5 miles due west of Jal and the other one I have leased is 15.5 mi NWW of Jal.
Glen Thompson & N Case --
You folks are way ahead of me in managing your mineral interests that were inherited in New Mexico. Apparently your properties are not far from ours in both Lea and Eddy counties. (We’re in several sections in T20S and R29E in Eddy County, which is right next door to several sections in Lea County (T 26E and R36 / 37E ) – not far from Jal. We also have fractional interests in adjoining Winkler and Andrews County TX. And, like Glen, we have property in Arkansas . Belatedly, I'm now attempting to inventory and electronically document this property for my family.
Like you, our interests also date back to the 1920's, with some from the early 1900's, much of which we have never seen. My generation (now in our 80's) has received small checks for years from both oil and gas production, but few of us have a complete record of the multiple leases and subdivisions of interest over the past 85 or 90 years.( My own children and younger kin know even less about these old and unknown properties, which were long thought to be dwindling in value. Now comes the $100 per barrel oil and new horizontal drilling technology and fracking, plus the WWW and Forums like this, as well as the detailed websites maintained by the state and national oil and gas offices.)
Although the county/state staffs/national-level O&G office staffs have been extremely courteous and helpful, I find that New Mexico, Texas and Arkansas have a bewildering mix of laws and land measurement systems , with widely differing county-level facilities and staff to assist property owners. So I especially appreciate your sharing your own experiences, and I will be looking into how to do similar self-assessment.
For related information, I would urge you to follow the discussions in Winkler and Andrews counties TX, as well as in Fisher and Scurry Counties. (Although I roughnecked in West Texas out of Odessa and Brownfield in the 50’s, I don’t know jack about the new horizontal drilling and frocking technologies, which I find mind-boggling. However, I’m doubly curious nowadays about how they plan to drill responsibly in all of these counties while protecting the water supplies and rare geological formations, for example around Carlsbad. We continue to have extremely serious problems in Arkansas as we try to protect the surface owners and our water resources.)
I’ll keep this group posted as I gather more information.
Thanks again for sharing.
Does anyone know the bonus rates being offered in T16S, R38E right now? We're being offered $250/nma, but activity seems to warrant more. Thanks for any help!
Cy,
The going rate is confusing in New Mexico, my first offer was 16.67% of the hole and $50 an acre for 5 year lease. He told me things were done differently in New Mexico. He called me with the land find in my favor, but still I turned him to the Bank, they will word for the best offer. Our 80 acres is in Township 3 South, Range 32 East. Thanks everyone for your sharing, it helps to know we not out there alone in all this exciting stuff.
Chris
I have 320 acres of mineral rights, just NW of Lovington. They have been leased for the past 10-15 years, but last year the oil company did not release them. On looking at their website, it looked like they move a big chunk of their exploration budget over to gas. 160 acres is located at
Township 15 South, Range 36 East, N.M.P.M.
Section 14: S/2 NW/4 & N/2 SW/4
The other 160 acres is about 1/2 mile away. I would be interested in leasing it out.
Hi there Lea County group!! My sister and I have 160 acres at T-16-S, R-37-E, Section 11 SE/4, Lea County N.M. I have been looking for a company to lease our acreage and have had no luck. I have tried Chesapeake, Apache, Mack Energy, Occidental and about 100 others (I have a whole spreadsheet) and no luck. Does anyone know any companies in the Lea County area that I might try to negotiate a lease with? Thanks for any help you can give.
Paula, chasing oil companies to lease your property really doesnt work. Companies generate drilling prospects utilizing their geologists, geophysicists, and engineers and come up with buy outlines for their prospects. Land submitted outside their prospect boundaries just doesnt register on their radars.
The only strategy that I feel you might be successful with would be to run the records in the county clerks office and determine who the offsetting operators are and contact them.
I had an operating company years ago and own minerals in 14 states currently.
That is what I would do.
Thanks for your help. I do only contact those companies operating in the Lea County area, hoping I would narrow my search down.
I'll take your advice and call the county clerks officeand see if that helps. Thanks again!
Paula,
Cimarex Energy Co. out of Denver had leased my mineral rights for six years, My mineral rights are just North of yours. Cimarex did not release them last year. The land man mentioned that they were interested in drilling a formation near my 320 acres. They must of lost interest when the shale fracking craze hit.
On another note, did you end up with your mineral rights when a family member homesteaded that area? If so, are you familiar with the 8 day clocks that were required?
Regards, Luke Originally from Seminole, TX
I did check with Cimarex back in 2011 and left a couple voicemails and didn't get a return call. I guess that means they were not interested. (I think Cimerex is the same as Fieldpoint. Do you know?
My father farmed on the land where my mineral right are. No, I have not heard of the 8 day clocks. What is that? I'll also google.
Here are Cimarex’s latest presentation as to what they are doing in the Lea County area.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=136094&p=irol-presentations
When the land in Lea County was opened up for home steading, you had to build a house on it and live on it for two years. The government would send an inspector around once a week to check the house. Since someone might be gone into town on the day the inspector came, they worked out a system with a clock that would run for eight days on one winding. The inspector would go in, if no one was home, and check to see if the clock was running. If it was, then that meant that someone had been in the house in the last eight days, so that met the requirement of some living there.
As people will do, the locals in my grandparent’s home town in Texas, would send one of the kids over on horseback, once a week, and they would go to 8 or 10 homesteads and wind all of the clocks and light a fire in the fire place. After two years of that subtrefuge, title passed to the new owners.
My great aunt Sue, was 15 or 16 years old and would head out on her horse and spend 2 or 3 days out on the prairie by herself, winding clocks. The families alternated which kid to send, so it was a shared effort. She was a tomboy and loved to be out on her own. Thus, I have ended up with the mineral rights to 320 acres, where my family’s old homesteads were located.
Very interesting. Thanks for the history!
Does anyone have any info on leases in Lea County, I have interest in Township 24 south, range 35 east, and would like input if there is any out there.