For the past few years I have been approached (through the mail) by mineral rights accusation companies that have been interested in acquiring my mineral rights. It is a smaller portion, however, over last the last 5 years the offers have increased 10 times, and I received my highest value yet. XTO has bought the horizontal drilling rights, and I have heard they are quite aggressive in all aspects of obtaining rights. I am not sure what I want to do, as I am not familiar with the rights as they have been passed down to me. It is located in Martian county, Texas. I was wondering if anyone was familiar with the area. Also, what is usually a mutual price point that these accusation companies/drilling rights owners will go up to on negotiations (125% of their offer, 150%?).
Do you mean Martin Co TX? If so, that’s in the heart of the Midland sub-basin of the Permian basin, and one of the hottest E&P provinces in the country. Based on your description, I assume you’re under lease. What is the royalty rate of your lease? Perhaps 1/8 royalty if it’s an old lease, perhaps up to 1/4 royalty if it’s a more modern lease. That number is very material to the value of your minerals.
XTO is owned by Exxon. That’s really good. Google search for which other oil and gas companies produce in Martin County, and for the smaller public ones, go to their website and look in their investor relations pages for investor presentations. Then look at the presentations. Some will describe their operations in Martin County, and that will give you a good idea of what’s going on there and how successful their wells are. Companies such as Pioneer natural resources, QEP, parsley energy, SM energy, Chevron, Oxy and the like are operating in that county.
Next, you can go to the Texas Railroad commission‘s website and search for recent Drilling comments in the county. Locate the ones closest to your property, and then go to the mapping feature on their webpage and look around. If you keep at it, you can figure out what recent Drilling has going on in the vicinity of your property, and that can also tell you which companies to investigate further.
Finally, go to vipers webpage – symbol VNOM. They are Mineral buying and owning subsidiary of diamondback energy. They acquired over 500 net mineral acres in the Permian basin in 2018, and state exactly what they paid for them. That’s a pretty good example of what minerals are worth in the Permian basin. Just beware – you have to be careful to ensure you are making apples to apples comparison. To do so go to the page in one of their investor presentations that defines net mineral acres, and extrapolate to ensure that you have the correct evaluation relative to your minerals.
Hope this helps. Good luck!