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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on April 30, 2011 at 5:04

Did the party selling the property reserve the minerals when your dad purchased the property?  Or were the minerals reserved or sold in a previous transaction?  When minerals are severed from the surface estate under LA. law, a mineral servitude is created which is active for ten years.  The ten year prescription clock may be reset whenever a good faith effort is made to produce the minerals (drill a well) whether that proves successful or not.  If it is successful and production is established the servitude remains until such future time as production ceases and the ten year clock begins to run again.  Since the producing CV well in Section 33 does not include his property nor the HA well in 34, It is possible that prescription has not been interrupted and the ten year clock is still ticking.  That would be in your father's favor because if his surface property were in either unit, the servitude would be Held By Production.  You need to determine when the minerals were first severed from the surface as that is when the clock started.  There are a number of discussions in the site archives on this subject.  Click on View All at the bottom of the Main Page discussions, in the search box enter the key word, Servitude or Prescription, and click on the magnifying glass.

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Permalink Reply by Rob on April 30, 2011 at 5:38

Thanks Skip that confirmed my findings and i will use those keywords for searching. His mineral rights were severed in a prior transaction before his property purchase. I have also researched all activity within two miles of his property and printed all the wells that have been attempted and P&A or producing to come up with a dated of last activity but havent weeded through them all yet but it looks good for him in his section.

Thanks for replying and being such a asset to this forum.

If i may be of any asistance in the future to anyone on this site please dont hesitate to contact me.

I work for a local Civil Engineering firm and have access to many parish maps, unlimited usgs maps and some subdivision plats.

Robert

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on April 30, 2011 at 6:18

You're welcome, Rob.  Just keep in mind that any well spud or entered for a re-completion attempt can interrupt prescription on the servitude covering your father's surface interest.  It doesn't matter if that well is in a unit or not.  And the servitude could cover acreage outside your father's surface acres.  You need to find the instrument creating the servitude which is filed with the Clerk of Court to be sure of the area you must keep an eye on.

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Permalink Reply by Sum1NSabine on April 30, 2011 at 15:30

The plat for the well bearing serial number 206328 that Rob refers to is not the unit plat for CV D RA SUUU.  It is only the well plat.  The well was drilled before the unit was established.  The unit was created under Order #207-B-5 for the Greenwood-Waskom Field and according to the Order the unit consists of all of Sec. 33 only.  Unfortunately this does not help Rob in recovering his dad's mineral rights through prescription.  This well has been producing steadily since July of 1987. 

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Permalink Reply by Rob on May 1, 2011 at 4:35

Thank Sabine for the info good or bad its better to be informed than not. I did see that order num. in the well info but didnt have time friday to run it down. Looks like ole dad is out of luck

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