I am interested in hiring a lawyer to help with mineral rights leases regarding my recently inherited mineral rights in several counties in Oklahoma. Already getting some lease offers. I’m wondering if I can work with a lawyer that will draw up a general lease specific to my needs, with all the necessary clauses worded properly so I don’t have to go through every lease? I would think several mineral owner lease drafts already exist. How much does it approximately cost for a lawyer’s services to do this? Essentially, I’m thinking I counter their drawn up lease with mine, and then negotiate the specifics from there. Some clauses include; Gross Royalty/No Deductions, Non-Warranty of Title, Shut-In Royalty, Operations, Pugh, Depth, Indemnification, Confidentiality Clause to name quite a few. If anyone here has any clauses I should be including in my lease specific to mineral property and not surface property(unless it assists surface owners and their dealings with these companies), please let me know. Thank you!
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Sounds like you already know the answers that youd pay an attorney $200 an hour to review. OK leases are a standard paid up lease form, ask the company trying to lease you for all those cluases, they are all standard language clauses except for the idemnification and confidentiality cluases which Im guessing all operators/lease brokers would strike.
Yes, this you can get a good oil and gas attorney to draw up a general lease like that. You still need to review any unusual situations that might come up. There are about ten more clauses that a competent oil and gas attorney should add in. A surface lease will be different, so needs to be separate if you also own the surface.
Sparkle, unless you are dealing with an industry produced form, there is no such thing as standard language. A Pugh clause can vary substantially by author, plus you may need to make considerations for horizontal operations. Striking warranty and other clauses is a separate issue. If you feel there is value in developing clauses that meet your specific need, then you will need to have a professional prepare those clauses for your use. You also need to get instructions on how these clauses are to be added or “bolted on” to the proposed oil and gas lease. Many companies today want to file Oil and Gas Lease Memorandums in order to exclude significant OGL terms from the public record. These memos affect your future negotiations since companies may not have public a public record of your terms. Since OK has forced pooling, negotiations are always complicated with the OGL negotiation process with the mineral owner having less leverage with the operator.
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