Pooling

Law & Legal
1

I was recently informed that my family owns net mineral rights(<50 acres) in Dimmit County in Texas. I was able to locate the parcel on the RR Commission webiste and there is all kinds of activity around it.

The surface owner has approached us with an offer to purchase the mineral rights. I would like to hold out for a lease, but with us having such a little peice of the big pie, it seems to me the surface owner can continue the current practice and exclude us and do just fine. I also find it interesting that the surface owner wells are doing a fraction of what the neighbooring section ranch owners are doing....Could it be that is intentional?

My question is, am I impacted by all the drilling in my surrounding area and when would pooling come into play? I would appreciate any advice for my situation.

I am new to this, so I appreciate your comments and patience with basic questions.

2

Unless the surface owner has executive rights or some other rights reserved in a deed, they cannot stop the mineral owners from leasing and drilling. Are there already wells on your acreage?

Pooling does not come into play until you sign a lease that allows pooling and they form a unit. <50acres will probably get pooled.

3

Wade,

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure if the surface owner has executive rights. How would I be sure? I dont see it in the original deed, but the surface land was sold and we just kept the mineral rights. He does have 50% minerals of the acreage I reference. Not to mention all the surface property in the vacinity, which has all sorts of activity/producing wells.

I went to the County today to do some research and everyone is pretty closed mouthed. There are 3 sections on this bigger ranch close to mine that look odd because they dont have any activity just like mine. I was trying to find out who owned those mineral rights and guess that the surface owner does not have all those minerals so he did not lease those areas. I wondered if I could get them all together to make a big peice to attract a lease, but that may not be possible if surface owner owns the executive rights...would that be correct?

Thanks again for your feedback

4

If he owns the executive rights, that means he owns the rights to lease, but you have to look at the wording of the document that created the executive rights carefully.