I have an ORRI on a gas property where I'm beginning to see unexplained owner interest cuts in recent statements. Let's say my assigned ORRI is 0.0025 and the operator has been paying that on production up until recently. For no given reason, they have cut my interest arbitrarily on many of the wells. Some have been cut by at least a half, some less, some not at all. The operator has not sold their interest, nor given written notice as to why. The are also re-processing past production months and applying the new arbitrary interest cuts and deducting revenue. Let me give an example of what I'm talking about:
Let's say I have a signed division order for well x confirming my 0.0025 ORRI. For 3 years, that's what they pay. Then I get a statement where out of nowhere they reduce my ORRI to 0.001005, and retroactively apply that lower interest to production they previously paid the 0.0025% on, in some cases going back 6 months. For instance on gas, the producer showed the Owner Interest as 0.001936 on the October ’14 production. Then in the May 2015 statement, the Owner Interest is cut to 0.001806 and applied retroactively to the October, November, December 2014, and January 2015 production. They back out the owner share paid already for October '14-lets say that at the 0.001936 ORRI percentage, it was $35.69. The apply the new 0.001806 owner interest to the same month, adding in $33.28 effectively deducting $2.41.
My question is under what circumstances can an operator do this with no explanation?
Calls and letters to the royalty owner department of the operator have gone un-returned.