Wise decision, Aaron. You were smart to come here and you’ve been given some valuable advice from some very smart, informed, honest people. Good luck. Linton
Aaron,
I like your thinking about hiring an Oil and Gas Attorney to take care of your best interest. Good luck with your minerals. Keep us informed as to the results. 
Clint Liles
In my experience a O & G attorney will rarely get you any more money. As a landman, I can tell you that a company has a ceiling on the bonus amount and royalty that they are willing to pay. Doesn't matter if you are negotiating for yourself or a lawyer is doing it for you, when the ceiling is met that that's as far as it goes. As far as not signing a good lease, I can tell you that if company A is offering a really good sounding deal, let's say 1/4 royalty and a grand per acre. Company A is not a producer and cannot afford to participate and the company who is putting in the well won't pay company A what they are asking for to get that lease assigned to them. Company A now cannot afford to participate so company A won't be getting any royalty payments and neither will you. Sign with a reputable company that offers you a fair price for your minerals and you should be ok.
Interesting. I have not heard of someone not receiving their lease royalty even if the company/individual that leased them fails to participate. But Oklahoma is not my regular beat.
Most states I'm familiar with the operator would carry the leased interest and be entitled to a lien on the lessees production until a massive 200%-350% penalty was recovered past the cost of drilling/completion. It seems strange to me that the lessor would not receive their royalty.
I would appreciate if someone could explain to me how the lessor's interest disappears?
RW,
Sounds to me like you are describing ND or similar. I actually have something similar to what was described happening to me in Texas. But it looks like we are hopefully about to work things out with "Company A". I didn't think it was possible either until it happened to me!
Finally, someone who thinks things through without being blinded by the $$$. I was sent a unsolicited lease for property I did not know I had inherited by a party I did not know at the time. Now some of the WV people on this board claim I am obligated to the contract simply because I signed the POST OFFICE form (a 3rd party in this case as there were no agreements otherwise) which indicated the envelope was received by the person whose name was on the label.
Reading through the lease I came upon a clause that no one with any intelligence would even consider signing the contract. Then I went back and started sorting out what the rest of the document MEANT vs what someone who was blinded by the money would not think about. The other co-owners who have contacted me, two out of 200+, mis-read the clause covering the royalty and thought they would receive 15% when the contract indicates the 200+ co-owners would DIVIDE the royalty payment in accordance to the percentage of unassigned land each co-owner "owned". And they missed the coverage of pooling with parties from another well site, etc.
Now, to top all this the party "offering" the contract has a poor safety record: several employees have died doing their assigned work during the last few years, the party managed to have at least one of their mass storage areas go up in flame, and recently had a pad fire only a few months ago (tried to drill a second bore only 10 feet from a capped bore, drill cut into the capped bore.)
Further, the PHYSICAL SIZE of the leased property SHOULD be an indicator as to the total amount of gas that can be obtained from a well on that property. For some reason the potential lessee is not offering to let me see the map(s) covering a potential well on the property in question and refuses to discuss the situation. From what I have been able to discover the co-owners might as well face the fact that the signing money they received is all they are probably going to receive because the royalty payout happens only after the fund in that person's name is more then $25. Determine how many people are co-owners of the land/mineral resource, subtract the funds needed for pre-production, divide by the number of wells that are pooled, etc., what is left?
And to make things even more interesting, my "ownership" comes from one side of my family, the other side has a number of relatives living in the western states, including Colorado, who have had first hand bad experience with the same drilling company during a time period dating before the drilling for gas in WV came about. They do not have a single kind word to say about the company.
As you stated in your opening line, "It's just not the $ part." RCR 12/23/2013
That's right! There's much more to leasing than $$. There are multiple lease provisions to digest. I spent a whole year negotiating on my 50 acre 100% O&G ownership. Their landman made several in-person visits to the big city to offer me "petty" enticements.
Finally, I told them I would accept a "no drill" lease at their current offer. Their offer came down to almost nothing. I told them to count me out.
I hear that the people around me at the farm don't understand why I'm not on the "pool" list. One finally asked so I told him I couldn't get the protection I wanted for my land, crops, and groundwater. This didn't mean anything to him.
Regardless, I learned a lot about these onerous-ripoff O&G leases from doing a lot of research and from the wonderful people on this forum.
Thanks,
Pat
Right-wing trolls.
You can't even understand the language here, yet you feel compelled to make this political.
I'll type slowly for you:
Mr. Adams is not stating that his brother-in-law is CHARGING 25%, or any fee for that matter, but rather that the landowners' ROYALTY SHARE would equal 25% of the gross proceeds of any production covered by the lease.
Shut up and go drink your tea while you listen to Clear Channel.
Good luck on the free i-phone.
That is absolutely highway robbery!
I suggest you go back and re read the postings. "The brother in Law is currently charging me 20% for negotiating. Is this a fair deal?" In the oil and gas business, reading the type can make or break you.
And being rude does not help the situation.
It’s important to negotiate a good lease, and part of that is determined by the reputation and credibility of the company. A company that is offering higher sign on bonuses than most, may also be the company who potentially doesn’t have the funds to drill in the future. Then you’re screwed. Just a thought, and hiring legal counsel is always your best bet. Make sure they’re credible as well! Good luck!
Reply by Aaron Adams on October 24, 2016 at 1:47pm
Thank you Gary,
The brother in Law is currently charging me 20% for negotiating. Is this a fair deal?
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Dan, you really got triggered. Before calling someone else's reading ability into question, maybe you should polish yours.
When you say "no drill" lease, do you mean you did not want any surface operations on your property? Just curious. Were they looking to use your 50 acres as the drill-site? With directional and horizontal drilling, that's usually not a deal breaker if there is a suitable site nearby.