Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 12, 2015 at 3:51

Gary, as to a registry, no.  Ownership of minerals is evidenced by documents filed in the public record of each parish.  You mention that the operator of the well you have an interest in has your correct address but you don't state whether the letter received by the lawyer came from them.  If it did come from your operator, have you contacted their owner services department to inquire if there is a problem?  What was the nature of the letter?

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Permalink Reply by Gary Att on October 12, 2015 at 5:00

Thanks, Skip. 

It's a pre-application notice for a cross unit lateral.   There is an existing unit and well for a single PLSS section.

CHK is the operator.  CHK has my correct address as a mineral rights owner, and sends me checks and other correspondence. 

The letter is from a law firm working on behalf of CHK.   I presume they went through their standard process for a pre-application notice.  My correct address is on the Judgement of Possession and the sale documents for the land, but they sent the notice to the probate lawyer.

I guess they don't have a big incentive to get the address right.  "Oh, gee, we're sorry you didn't get your legal notice, but we followed the correct legal procedures." <crocodile tears>

My name is on the documents, just not the address, so I'm not too worried about ownership questions.  I do watch SONRIS, so they shouldn't be able to sneak in a new well, or not pay for production without me noticing.

It's a shame there's no state registry of mineral interests.  Even without the lawyer address question, it seems that any time a "detached" mineral rights owner changes address, there's no way to update the records so things like this can find the correct owner. 

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 12, 2015 at 5:14

Unit and Alternate Unit Well applications always come from a law firm.  The notice letter that you received is a requirement by the state to all mineral and surface owners within the unit boundary and adjacent to a distance of 1000'.  As long as you continue to receive royalty payments at the correct address, this isn't worth the time to pursue.  However you may choose to contact the law firm and request that the Interested Party List included with the notification process be amended to include your correct address if it concerns you.  You could also contact owner services/customer service to check the address they have in their records. 

No state has a registry like you describe.  It is the owner's responsibility to ensure that there are instruments that evidence ownership in the public record for the parish or county where the producing well or wells are located.  Simple change of address notification doesn't necessarily need to be in the public record.  If you are worried about that ask your attorney what you can do about it.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Att on October 12, 2015 at 5:54

I'm not too concerned about this particular application, it seems to be according to the standard practice in terms of payouts.

I'd like for the required legal notices to be sent to the correct address in the future, but there doesn't seem to be a good solution in "the system" if a mineral owner's address changes.

Thanks for the info.  Your take on this agrees with my assesment of the situation. 

I probably won't pursue this further, other than being sure CHK and this law firm have my correct address.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 12, 2015 at 6:05

In the case of Alternate Unit Applications the Interested Party List may be the same one used in the original unit application.  Since the original Haynesville Shale unit applications were submitted and approved several years ago, at least, it would not be a surprise for the ownership interests to change through succession or sale and for owners in the first IP list to have changed address.  You could contact CHK and request that future applications for your section include your correct address.

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Permalink Reply by Max on October 12, 2015 at 5:42

 "It's a shame there's no state registry of mineral interests"

Gary, since all this information is filed in the public record of each parish, it would be a waste of tax dollars to do so on the State level.  The cost would not justify two sources of the same information and it would open the door to more errors.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Att on October 12, 2015 at 6:28

I don't care whether it's at the state or parish level.   I think it should be better organized. 

The current system apparently doesn't have an easy way to update an address of a mineral owner.  If you want to search for mineral interest owners, you have to have someone skilled in the art of searching the data.  It's time consuming and error prone. It's very easy to miss an important document. 

It's even confusing for surface property owners, but it's a little better organized, probably because property taxes are involved.

This is bad for all involved, including mineral owners, surface property owners, the state government, and oil and gas companies.  The public would be better served by a more consistent system of records.

However, it ain't likely to happen any time soon, and I'm not too terribly concerned about it.   I suspect a lot of people get screwed because they don't know how to keep track of such things.

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Permalink Reply by Max on October 12, 2015 at 7:19

Gary, as you said, the current system could be better organized and easier for the average person to find and understand what they need to know about their property. 

I had to spend some time at the courthouse finding my information and I was lucky because I had the time to invest in doing so.  It was a hassle to travel out-of-state and employing an attorney was beyond my pay-base.  A simple Google search would have been a lot easier.

Here in Texas, I can search the public records at home on my computer.  When I was in the process of searching my property records in Louisiana, I had to sigh up and pay a fee to access the records on-line.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 12, 2015 at 7:29

Pay per use clerk of court remote access accounts still beat the heck out of working in the courthouse.  The question is whether the scanned records go far enough back in time to meet requirements.

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Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on October 12, 2015 at 13:00

CHK is about 1/10 of what it was worth in the summer of 2008. They are probably trying to squeeze pennies now that Carl Ican owns a big bunch of their company.They probably used the same IP list, like Skip said, from the original well. They may not want to hire real landmen and abstractors to do the work and just use some kid in their office to do the work. I would think in the summer of 2008 some of their landmen and abstractors were of the same caliber.

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