Noble county Sec 35 Tw 21N 3E NW quarter. I own 126.66 unleased nonproducing mineral rights in this part of the section. 8/10/2016 The following oil companies listed them as part of their leases for collateral ( Jericho Buckmanville OIL LLC, Eagle Road Oil LLC, and Lurgan Oil LLC grantors) to East West Bank the Grantee. They acquired them from Energest last year. I wrote a letter to Jeriho Buckmanville OiL at their Tulsa address, but have not heard from them yet. I have not called the Oklahoma Corporation Commission yet, but not sure if they can do any thing. My problem is that it might be assumed that they have me leased and anybody else that was interested in leasing would not contact me. I would appreciate any advice as to what recourses I have and I also wonder how legal this is for them to do.
Rosalie,
I see two leases were executed by a Rosalie Ann Sears in 2010 covering the E/2 NW/4 and the SW/4 NW/4 in the first lease and the NW/4 NW/4 in the second lease, recorded at 672/179 and 677/597 respectively, and dated March 4th and May 5th of 2010. Both leases contained a two year option to extend.
The Glencoe 1-35 was drilled in the S/2 of the Section in 2010, and does not affect your minerals.
Per Memorandum of Extension of Primary Term of Oil and Gas Leases, dated 7/22/2013 and recorded at 745/377 it is noted that Highmount Exploration is gave notice that the lease extension options were exercised.
The leases expired by their own terms in March and May of 2015.
Highmount conveyed the leases to Enervest who conveyed the leases to Eagle Oil. Eagle Oil executes a mortgage, leveraging their ownership in these now expired leases in 2016.
The story seems clear to me that you are open. Not being a lawyer I could not say if the mortgage clouds your title or not, but I see no reason why anyone would think you are not open of record, nor would they hesitate to lease you. It seems to me this is a problem between the East West Bank and the mortgagees.
Your old leases were probably just on an old inventory list that they attached to the mortgage and I doubt there is anything nefarious occurring here unless there is more information that you can add to the story.
Rosalie,
Oklahoma statue creates a duty to release terminated/expired oil and gas leases. A Slander of Title can occur when a company continuously fails to remove a terminated/expired lease. The key is the continuous failure to remove, a document that casts a cloud upon another's title to real estate. I would send a letter certified with return receipt requesting your minerals be removed from the list of real properties being used for collateral. If the company refuses to do so or just does not ever do it you have a legal standing. However, like R Story wrote, your minerals appear to be unleased, but it's your statutory right to have the records corrected.