I recently received a pooling order for property in OK and replied with my election. I have a couple of general questions about the Pooling Orders.
Who receives copies of pooling orders - everyone who has an interest regardless of whether they have signed a lease or only those who have an interest and haven’t signed a lease?
My name and address, along with many others, appeared in Exhibit A. Who is listed in Exhibit A?
My name and correct address appeared in Exhibit A with the word “Curative” underneath. What does that mean?
1- Those who do not have a lease.
2- Those who do not have a lease.
3- It means you need to call the attorney on the order and find out why they think your title has a problem. Ask them how to fix it.
I’m glad these questions are being asked. Family circumstances have led me to educate myself on the oil and gas business. My acreage is in 23-12-6 Canadian County and the lease I have pertains to a vertical well that’s been producing continuously since the late 1970s. As I understand Ms. Barnes, my lease means I’m not subject to any pooling orders. My questions are these…(1) Am I exempt from pooling for new horizontal wells at any level? (2) Wells that produce from adjacent Sec 26 and my Sec 23 are proposed. Let’s say that pooling has been offered to holders without leases in 26 and 23. Will I be paid for the pool or only products from Sec 23 where my lease is located because I don’t have the option to pool with Sec 26.? (3) Permits have been issued for five wells, Justify 26-23-12-6 each with a different suffix, i.e. 1WXH, 2MXH, etc.I understand the “W” stands for Woodford and “M” stands for Mississippian formations. If the Woodford is only under Sec 26 and Mississippian is under 23 will everybody in both sections get paid or will they be paid respectively to each well designation due to the underlying formation?
(1) Am I exempt from pooling for new horizontal wells at any level? Depends upon your original lease. If you had no depth clause, then you probably are held by the original lease.
(2) Wells that produce from adjacent Sec 26 and my Sec 23 are proposed. Let’s say that pooling has been offered to holders without leases in 26 and 23. Will I be paid for the pool or only products from Sec 23 where my lease is located because I don’t have the option to pool with Sec 26.? **If you only have minerals in 23, then you will only be paid on those minerals. However, if the new well is a horizontal through 23 & 26, you will be paid on your share of the well. The equation is net acres/actual spacing acres x royalty x % of perforations in your section. The good news is that you will be paid on every horizontal well within that spacing. **
(3) Permits have been issued for five wells, Justify 26-23-12-6 each with a different suffix, i.e. 1WXH, 2MXH, etc.I understand the “W” stands for Woodford and “M” stands for Mississippian formations. If the Woodford is only under Sec 26 and Mississippian is under 23 will everybody in both sections get paid or will they be paid respectively to each well designation due to the underlying formation? The Woodford and Mississippian will most likely be present in both sections. These are vast reservoirs of shale that cover many counties and in some cases, states. Think of a large layer cake. These are two layers of frosting within the body of the whole cake. Some bendy straws will go high and some bendy straws will go low.
Curative most likely means that there is some uncertainty in the title or who is entitled to inherit. These typically need a probate to clear up. Sometimes a quiet title will work.
Richard Winblad
Thank you, Ms Barnes. How does one know the number of total perforations and the number of perforations in any given section? Will that info be listed on a division order or do you need to sleuth it out of the oil company?
When they perforate the well, they publish the well survey on the OCC well records site. I am a geologist, so I can figure it out since I read them frequently. The OCC will actually publish the percentage breakout in a final order for the well(s). The Division order will hopefully match the percentage that is in the order, but keep an eye on it because sometimes they don’t. And sometimes, the division order is incorrect. I have had to send corrections into the operator when they have assigned the wrong parcel to me. With hundreds of owners, it can happen.
Just when I was getting comfortable with some of the vagaries of this business, along comes yet another thing to keep an eye on. I’m surprised more people don’t complain about being taken advantage of. I eagerly await the division order for the Justify 26-23-12-6 wells.
We were force pooled in 8-10-12. The land is restricted due to Indian heirship. This means that we can name our price for the lease of the land since they’re pooling without a lease with us correct?
Is “your” interest part of Indian heirship that is controlled by the BIA, or just part of the lands somewhere in the section? Are you referencing Section 8-10N-12W, Caddo County, OK?
How would I get to the Well Survey on the OCC Web site? I have the Application to Drill, the permit to Drill, Cementing Report, Survey, Notification of Spud, and Completion Reports and all the associated documents for the well. The survey is a listing of various depths, etc. On the Completion Report I see “There are no Perf. Intervals records to display” and on another well I see Perforated Intervals From 7272 to 12165. But no % breakdowns. I would really like to know if the division order has been done correctly.
Thank you! Just found this website!
Welcome to the Forum! I am assuming you are in OK.
The “Survey” is the well survey. Sometimes, the splits are on the bottom, but not always.
You also have to look for the final determination on the Order from the OCC. What section, township and range are you in? You can look up your section and go through the cases affiliated with it. Sometimes, it is found in the Horizontal well case and sometimes in the location exception case, but there is a final ruling on the splits. Since your perforations are only 4893’ you may have all the perforations in your section. But they could be partly in one section and partly in another.
http://www.occeweb.com/caseprocessingonline/default.aspx
The formula is net acres/spacing acres x royalty x %perforations in your section. (This is for Oklahoma-Texas is a wee bit different.). Not all sections are 640 acres if that is the spacing. If you are on the northern tier or western tier of sections, they are usually slightly different due to the survey corrections for the curvature of the earth.
Thank you so much. Yes, the wells are in Oklahoma (Kingfisher County). I had been looking for that link! The OCC had been sending me the cases I was interested in but this shows me the ones I might have missed. I have gotten the Tract Factors from Alta Mesa and am now in the process of questioning the division orders. I believe the mineral acres attributed to my mom are incorrect. This whole process has been a steep learning curve, sigh… And it does not help that Alta Mesa has declared bankruptcy and the paperwork has been moved to Mach Resources. Mach Resources has not responded to my dad’s Owner Inquiry Forms. I am sure they are very busy.
This could be difficult to untangle. Which section, township and range? Kingfisher has quite a few older waterflood units that have horizontals under them now. The DO may have the waterflood decimal, not the usual standalone easy to calculate decimal from above. Your mom’s net acres from the original time frame will be important to figure out. The S_T_R will indicate which waterflood it might be in.
Kingfisher County, Section 4 T15N R5W. Her mineral acres are in the NW/4 which has 164.32 acres. She used to get paid on two wells that were plugged in Jun 2018. And now has a small decimal interest in the horizontal well in that section. Alta Mesa sent me a sheet that lists Royalty Interest, Mineral Interest, Tract Interest, Tract NRI, Tract Factor and Unit NRI for 5 different tracts (Those tracts add up to 164.32). Doing the math on the info they provided us, leads me to believe that they have calculated her mineral acres to be exactly half of what she has. (Royalty Interest x Mineral Interest x total acres in the quarter)
What is her royalty?
The equation is:
net acres/spacing acres actual x royalty x % perforations in the section. The section has 649.38 acres.
I will assume 3/16ths.
164.32/649.38 x .1875 x 1.00=0.04743948. Does this match the DO? Or is the DO half of this?
However… if you are going off the lease amount where it states the acres, then those are gross acres. It is highly possible that she only inherited half of it if she split with a sibling. See what net acres Alta Mesa or the new company has for her.
Thank you very much. She is supposed to have 3/16 but they show her with 1/8. I know there was a oil and lease assignment to DenverAmerican Petroleum 4/15/97. I think they closed their doors in Sept 1997. I would assume the oil lease would go back to the person who assigned it to them. I can track all the Working Interest assignments and it all eventually ends up with BCE Mach III.
I should clarify that Blair Oil Company was the company that assigned it to DenverAmerican Petroleum. There were several assignments of oil leases but almost all of them addressed the working interest.