On the positive side of the coin about dealing with production companies...

A title analyst at EOG contacted us this summer. In going over our contract for a producing lease in East Texas with EOG, he discovered that we had a no cost clause that had been overlooked in our payments for the last two years, (this is one of the very few leases for which we have such a clause), and that EOG would soon be making up for the overcharges in our payments. They have subsequently made good on this. This also alerted us to check with their JV on this lease - Petrohawk/BHP. After communicating with them, they have also refunded similar overcharges on their portion of our payments for this lease.

Was this unprompted correction in part due to the current climate of greater diligence and law suits? Maybe, but BHP had not done similar diligence. We greatly appreciated this diligence and honesty on the part of EOG. As far as I can tell, everyone in my family had forgotten about the existence of that clause in our lease and in all likelihood would have never caught the mistake on our own.