I’m the owner of record and I receive monthly royalty checks but operator won’t share leases with me. (Though presumably I’m paid based on them). Referred me county clerk and (1000 miles away).
Depending upon where you have minerals, many counties have digital files that may help. If the lease is older than the digital files, then you may have to hire a landman to get a copy for you.
A landman? How so?
I am not familiar all they do, so apologies in adva ce. I thought they helped people find their deeds/minerals, title chains and worked out deals between mineral owners and companies.
But, again, I’m not knowledgeable in oil and gas.
Again, thank you for your help.
Thank you for responding. 
The operator foisted me onto arbon WY county clerk. Clerk did an iDoc search (I’d searched iDoc years ago but she was nice…)
Two problems: The clerk only has an abstract not the entire lease/agreement. The lease predates data entry, “You can come in…cause it’s a lot of work.” Thanked her and declined. I’m not flying to WY or anywhere during a pandemic.
The clerk was surprised the operator wouldn’t just give it to me. I’m surprised too. When one party has access to an agreement and the other party does not, how is that acting in good faith?
I told the clerk, “I guess maybe…IDK…they’re in bankruptsy and…”
"I know all about it. I get calls all day long about them.
Poor woman. 
You’re right, landmen deal with all the things you’ve listed above. Field landmen in particular deal with researching records in counties. We work for landowners and oil and gas companies. It’s not a big deal to do a lease check and get copies. I don’t know how many you need, but if all you want are copies of leases, it could get done in a few days, probably sooner. I’ve only worked in Texas and New Mexico. I can’t say for sure how fast it would go in Wyoming.
If you hire a landman, it would be good to let them know the following:
- Who is the Lessor of the lease? Did you sign it, or did someone else sign it, and you later acquired the property?
- Date range of when you think the leases were signed and recorded. If you can narrow it down to a year or a decade, that would be helpful.
- Who is the Lessee of the lease? Is it the current operator, or some other company?
- Legal description. What lands do the leases cover? If you don’t know your legal description, find the deed from when you purchased the property. That will have your legal description on it.
Landmen typically get paid a day rate and are reimbursed mileage and expenses (food, hotel, copies, etc.). It’s best to find someone as local as possible. Many contract landmen work for land brokers, so you might want to google land brokerages in the area you need the search done if you go down that path. AAPL is another option as well.
I don’t know what you meant when you said the clerk only has an abstract, not the entire lease/agreement. If you mean the clerk could only find a Memorandum of Oil and Gas Lease, then I’d say stop right there. If the leases were filed in Memo form, the only people who have the long form lease are likely the current owners of the lease. Which, it sounds like, are the people who sent you to the clerk in the first place. However, if that is not what you meant, then disregard this tangent.
Thank you for your response. And yes, the clerk believes the county may only have an abstract and not the entire agreement. The good news is I was able to get (from one of the original partner’s sister the book and page number where it (lease or abstract) is recorded at the county.
If I understand you correctly, I could hire a landman to go retrieve whatever the county has.
That seems reasonable and much more reasonable than flying from CA inthe middle of pandemic.
Thank you for your help.
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