Maybe this is a silly question. If there are 120 acres and the mineral rights are divided up between say 20 people how is it possible to apportion an exact location to each ones mineral rights? Seems impossible. So is it that no matter where one drills on the 120 acres each person who has mineral rights is paid? But then if one owns the surface rights and mineral rights are his mineral rights only under what he owns on the surface? Here's a scenerio... there are about 300 acres and John owns 230 acres plus mineral rights. Mineral rights under the 300 or only the 230? Ray and Gladys do not own any surface rights but own mineral rights to 70 acres. 70 acres only under the 70 John does not own. I do apologize if this is confusing. If they divide these mineral rights into acres measured out to 5 decimal places...where are they physically within the parcel? I'm getting a headache thinking on this.....
For your first example, 120 acres and there are 20 people who own the mineral rights (let's say original owner had 4 children, who each had 5 children so each one has an equal 1/20). They each own 1/20 undivided interest in the original 120 acres, and each would get 1/20 of the total royalty, if they each signed a lease with the same royalty % as the other, let's say each signed for 18%. Then each would get 1/20 of 18% of the revenue for a unit size of 120 acres, or 1/20 of 18% (.18) of 120/500 for a 500 acre unit. Each would own 6 mineral acres (120 acres / 20 people = 6). It the unit size is 1280, each of these 20 would have 6/1280 of the unit or .0046875 of the unit. But each person's 6 net acres is still not really a particular 6 acres within the 120 acre original part, but rather just 1/20 of the whole.
That is, if I understand your example correctly.
For the second, if you are talking about drilling units I am not sure I know enough to say, but if it is the unit of 300 acres made up of John's 230 acres and Ray and Gladys's 70 acres, and all 300 acres is in the unit and not more, John gets whatever royalty % he negotiated with the landman (let's say 18%) times 230/300 (his acreage share) times the production (.138). Ray and Gladys get their negotiated % (let's say 16% because that is how they did it) times 70/300 (their acreage share) times the production (.03733). However, John, Ray and Gladys all benefit from drilling on their total of 300 acres. For those purposes, it doesn't matter where the well is located (on John's 230 or Ray and Gladys's 70), because all 300 acres are in the unit. However, for surface negotiations, John has the right to negotiate that for his 230 acres, but Ray and Gladys don't have those rights for their 70 acres. If John also owns the surface of those 70 acres, he can negotiate for all 300 (things like right of ways, well pad location payment, etc.)
Does this make sense? There are many more complicated scenarios. For example if those 20 people who own that 120 acres don't own the same amount.
Good answer. Turns out we have 120 acres of mineral rights to split up. So my understanding is that no matter where they drill on that 120 acres the profit is shared with each person per his contracted share. Interesting. We are a small part of a 120 acre parcel very close to Avon and New Milton. Sort of west of where th Meathouse Fork and Indian Fork merge. It's a really strange shaped parcel. I think I'll ask the County recorder about it. All I want right now is some copy of a document that says..." and to SVBM I leave...etc". For my genealogical records. Hey thanks for replying. I get it now.
I forgot if you have been able to get to Doddridge to do research, but I think I remember that you live far away. It is really frustrating to me that these documents are not available online to research, in so many counties. One day...