Surprise Valley has been recording lease memos in Leon County since 12/6/2021. The latest batch was filed on 5/12/2022. Lease execution dates range from 8/28/2020 to 4/20/2021. Estimated totals so far:
735 leases
99 surveys
33,000 gross acres
The attached map shows the surveys included in the lease area. The area follows Highway 79 from north of Jewett to north of Ridge.
It is normal to see the initial leases held for more than a year before recording. However, in this lease project, it appears that every lease is being held for a year or so before recording. Does anyone have any possible explanations for this?
As noted in my first post, that is usually the practice for the first batch of filings…very typical for them to be held for a year or more. However, I’ve never come across a leasing project where leases continued to be held for long periods of time after the first filing.
I would point you towards other larger leasing trends like the one seen up in Gaines/Dawson/Borden counties by CGS (EOG). They held on to all the leases for more than a year and dumped them all at once. I think it was like a 1/3 of Dawson recently on leases from late 2020 and halfway through 2021 even though they already had filed the other 2/3 of Dawson County leases. They still have not filed the Borden County leases even though they drilled a test vertical well. (Obviously its an extreme case.)
Of course holding leases can backfire. I saw it happen here in Anderson County during the Goodland Lime leasing boom from late 2012 through the first half of 2014 (more than 9,000 leases written by various entities).
Early on, Devon did some stealth leasing (and had Brammer Engineering drill a stealth test well). They recorded a few of them, but held onto considerably more. Another entity came in and leased with the same mineral owners (offered better terms) and immediately recorded the leases, thus invalidating the Devon leases that were being held.
I found Alan Herrington’s information very interesting, especially considering his map appears to show that the H. Porter A-687 and the T. White A-920 are under lease to Surprise Valley. My family has mineral interests in both those surveys, yet those surveys are not included in either of the two leases we signed with SV.
Can anyone advise me as to how we can determine why we weren’t approached about leasing in those two areas, if they were in fact leased by Surprise Valley? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.
Keep in mind that the mapping includes a survey as long as one or more acres in that survey are included in a lease. In most cases, not all of a survey is included. For example, the Surprise Valley leasing includes about 40 acres in the Porter Survey (plus 185 acres in a tract that overlaps the Porter and Green (A-323) Surveys.
Mineral owners in or near there can contact Sun Valley. They are just a broker for a company that used to be Encana!
Do not lease for $300 that’s way too cheap!. This is an old Cotton Valley play that has been around for year’s in this area.
They are trying to be sneaky.
Can someone share the contact details for the representative with Surprise Valley? I have mineral ownership in property that borders the map of current leases and haven’t been contacted yet.
Thanks
Encana (now Ovintiv) has a drilling history in Leon County. From 2005 until 2013, Encana submitted 82 W-1s in Leon County, and quite a few of those were for deep vertical wells.
The RRC Completion Report records show Encana completed 14 Bossier vertical wells from 2010 to 2012. Depths ranged from 15,500 to 20,000 feet.
If Ovintiv is indeed behind the Surprise Valley leasing, then I think one of the possibilities could be horizontal Bossier wells.
What leads you to believe it is Comstock? I thought their plate was pretty full over in the Haynesville. However, Comstock was one of the companies in my initial “guess list”.
