I have two sets of leases, one from 1905 and the other from 1973. Are they still in effect? At what point do they expire? Is there a term on new leases when they are drawn up?
Read the leases and see if there is something about how long leases are valid. The old ones often were a year, sometimes 20 years; I have seen both. Usually something like a well must be drilled within the time period or the lease is invalid. Then if the well is drilled the lease remains in effect so long as oil and gas are produced in paying quantities, or maybe just produced. Or something else. Even in the 1970s I have seen several that were for just one year. Some were leased again at the end of the year.
We have one lease still valid from 1890. There was some funny business around 1970 when somebody bought the old lease (had changed hands quite a few times by then, in a group with dozens of other leases from that era) and reworked an old well which had not produced in decades, and claimed it was still under the lease. He got away with it.
I'm curious what you find. Is the old one handwritten?
I don't have the one from 1905. The lawyer is checking, hopefully today. I called a month ago and asked about it. I never heard back. All of my wells look like they have had as many tenants as a flop house back as far as the 1980s. Those O&G folks trade them around like baseball cards. No wonder things get so messed up.
Yes I have had lots of fun tracing ownership of leases and wells.
Does your 1973 lease have some language about duration of the lease? If there is a producing well on it, that would be enough to hold it.
You should have a good time with the 1905 lease. It might be handwritten, but maybe Doddridge had typewriters by then, to make the copy for the records. This would have been in the flat rate gas era, when they typically paid royalty of 1/8 of all oil produced, and an amount ($200 a year or something like that) for all the gas produced, per gas well.
The lease I found was actually a transfer. I am going to have to go old school to put my hands on the 1905 lease. I LOVE that school teachers have the summer off. It just sucks that summer is still so far away! lol
The 1973 lease was an assignment of the lease? That happened a lot.
Hope you don't need all summer to get your searching done!