I haven’t received royalties in 3 months from Oxy. I’ve emailed, called etc. Heard nothing
Has anyone heard anything
Review your Division Order. Do you have your minimum royalty set at $100 or did you reset it at $25? Was your last check close to $100? Depending upon what wells you have, you may not have made your minimum accrued amount. You may have wells shut in while fracking is nearby. They will hopefully come back online. If your wells are in certain parts of the Permian basin, there are pipeline issues. Have you sent a certified letter return receipt to the Owner Relations department asking what is going on? Put your name, wells, and owner number in the letter. If you are in Texas, that starts an official clock ticking for a required response.
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I’m in the same boat. My interest was formally operated by Crownquest…haven’t been paid for months.
I have been on a multi year odessey with Oxy. They actually have some very good, insanely overworked people. The problem I have seen is they are drilling wells with incomplete title. Instead of finalizing ownership in the wells they just drilled they just move on to the next project. The cumulative effect is that there is an almost disasterous backlog of unpaid or erroneously paid royalties. It is not the lower level employees fault. It is management that is failing there royalty owners in a very big way. It is almost impossible to get an actual telephone conversation, or an actual targeted email address, to discuss your issues.
There are two levels of title. The first is a drilling or leasing title opinion which may or may not be done completely before drilling. In the rush of leasing, some agents just lease without checking title and others do a better job. Since bonus amounts are a small percentage of the cost of the project, some companies are not as careful at this stage. Some are very careful. Not all leasing agents may have been working for Oxy back at leasing time.
The second level of title opinion is the Drilling Order title opinion which is done by a different attorney’s office. This is the more rigorous one since it is tied to the royalty payments and they want to make sure that 100% of the mineral rights are accounted for in paying out for the well(s). This takes months and may involve thousands of mineral owners, so you want it to be done correctly. Patience is required. Good idea to have excellent records of your own to make the DO analyst’s job easier. Be kind to them!