Is there always 640 acres to a section, or could there be less?

Is there always a guarantee that the full 640 acres will be used to divide the royalty? I understand our lease to read that it will be divided by what the lessor owns within the section. Do they sometimes only lease part of the section, or do they always lease the full section? We are nearly exactly on the dividing line of a section. Do we have to share with the adjacent section also?

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how far can a rig be from a section line to drill into adjacent section? what is max distance it could be from one section to drill adjacent section
I don't think there is a distance requirement on this type of well for the surface location. I dunno
Kitty:

I think that the only thing that matters is where the lateral wellbore enters and ends in the target reservoir in its unit, and those distances would be determined by the field rules, usually 330' from the unit boundary.

Hope this helps.

Jay
thanks Jay.
thanks KB
330' from the property line is the rule for wells drilled on a lease basis, (for wells deeper than 3,000') if a unit has been formed its 330' from the unit boundary, unless the field rules specify otherwise.
I have seen several operators placing the surface location closer to the property line (or Unit boundry if it is already formed), in some cases as close as 107'.

However, the well plats clearly show where the HA is penetrated (some as close as 125' as the unit boundry), and also where the first and last perferations will be. The perferations are garunteed to be "no closer than 330' from the boundry of the unit.

Look at CHK well in Sec. 12-15N-15W plat in their permit application to see a good example (ser # 238148)
As a side note, most of CHK new applications have surface locations that are directional drilling to the HA and then drilling a lateral, presumably to allow them to use the same pad for multiple wells.
I hope it's not a fox paw to reply to an old discussion here.

There's some background information that some people may not know.

In most of the country, land is divided according to the township section. A township is a square 6 miles on a side. A township is divided into 36 1-mile square sections. 1 mile square is 640 acres.

There are some complicating factors, however.

Sometimes, there was a special "land grant" or other division of the land in some system other than the township section.

Some parts of the country, including parts of LA were divided before the township system was implemented.

Some townships/sections are slightly non-standard for various reasons.

You can't cover a sphere with squares. They fit reasonably well on small areas, but over a large area, the won't fit. Townships and sections are sometimes skewed to make them line up with north/south/east/west and adjacent townships.

Texas doesn't use the township section, at least for most of Texas. Some parts of South LA were divided before the township system, or before the LA purchase.

Production units in LA are usually, but not always, one section. Because of the above factors, it may vary from 640 acres.

"Township" means two different things. 1) A 6 mile square division of land, and 2) the number of 6 mile square townships you are North of the baseline. For instance, one "Township" may be designated "Township 11 North, Range 14 West."

sonris will show you a map of townships and sections.
Mac,
If you look at some of the old plat maps in Louisiana (and I guess some of the new), you will often see little "slivers" of land bordering on water ways. This is reflective of the fact that the French measured land by "arpents", being so much land bordering and going away from the water's edge. The reason for this was primarily so that the landowner would have access to the water. Well, in time, as the original landowner died (and so on), the land would be divided among the heirs in that manner. Thus the little "slivers". When the U.S. came in in 1803 (the Louisiana Purchase), they worked around all this with the T&R system. The area around Cane River in Natchitoches Parish is a good example.
If I am remembering right, a section or two down around Converse is odd shaped as well, following the Los Ormigas Grant Line. Texas' system is called the "metes and bounds" system. It uses surveys and abstracts instead of section, township, and range. There are only a handful of states that use this system, Texas and the East Coast states from the Carolinas to Maine (give or take a state).
After I posted this, I looked at sonris, and it seems that some of the land around Shreveport is strangely sectioned. I think it has to do with being swampland.

For instance, T17NR13WS37

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