I’m looking for advise. Inherited a working interest in a well years ago. The well became uneconomical several years ago but they are still billing me running up several hundred dollars a month. Have tried to contact them multiple times but they don’t return calls or respond to letters. Just want to assign over my interest to them and get out of the well. Don’t understand why they won’t plug the well if uneconomical unless they are making money of the ibterest owners?. How can I get out of this well. Should I just ignore thm?.
You cannot ignore them since you have a contractual arrangement from years ago. Depending upon where you are, they may be holding onto that uneconomic well in hopes of getting a piece of a good horizontal well.
You may want to post the location on the forum in the proper county and state and see what is going on near you.
Not saying this is true in your case, but some unscrupulous operators will drag out uneconomic wells when their operating fees are enough to make the well profitable for them even if it isn’t for the other owners.
In any case, you should have the right under the JOA (assuming you have a typical JOA) to demand that they plug the well. You will be required to pay them your share of the plugging costs.
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I am in the same situation on the border of Andrews and Ector County‘s. Joint interest billing has outweighed revenue for years. There are multiple wells in both counties that have been there since the 1960s. is there no way to get the operator to take the property back?