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Permalink Reply by Henry on October 5, 2012 at 12:05

You have a couple of choices.  You can contact Chesapeake, and see if they would enter into a lease with you.  They may choose not to,  You also need to go to the "Unleased Mineral Owners" group on this site, and read the post called "Louisiana Unleased Mineral Owners - Must Read."  That will outline the obligation of CHK to you, if you are unleased.  Read that, and if you have more questions, let us know.  

Also, if you share the section, township, and range with us, we can tell you the status of any wells.

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Permalink Reply by T. Matzke on October 5, 2012 at 17:21

Thanks, I will as soon as I find the papers!

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on October 9, 2012 at 19:16

Depends on what state you are in. Is Dolet Hills in Louisiana?

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Permalink Reply by Henry on October 9, 2012 at 23:52

Andrew,

Yes, the Dolet Hills Lignite Mine is in southeastern DeSoto Parish.  Its extent is quite large -- at some time or another, all or part of about 20 (that's a guess) sections have been it.  I believe mining began in the early 1980's, and still continues today.  (You can go on Google Earth and see photos of the ongoing strip mining.)  Much of the mining has been completed, and the land restored and released (I think).  The 40-year leases will expire later in this decade.  

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on December 9, 2012 at 7:56

T,

It's curious that you have been receiving "yearly lease checks." These sound like royalty payments from the lignite mine. In that case your mineral interests would already been leases and there would likely be no further agreements necessary. Then again, your brother would be getting the same royalty checks as you.

If CHK or anyone did not actually have permission to drill your property, you would be a UMI and you should check out that group for info.

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Permalink Reply by Henry on December 10, 2012 at 0:43

The "yearly lease checks" are advance royalty payments from the lignite mine.  They arrive every September, right?  The lignite leases were signed in the late 1970's.  To date, some of that land has yet to be mined for lignite.  The yearly lease check is an advance on any future lignite royalties.  This payment is made to keep the lease in effect until actual mining begins on the land.  Once mining begins, this advance royalty is subtracted out from the actual royalties.  My understanding is the lignite leases run until about 2018.

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Permalink Reply by Henry on December 10, 2012 at 2:00

Let me add one more thing to my prior post...  The fact that your lignite is leased does not affect your right to lease your oil and gas rights.  The lignite lease does not tie up your oil and gas rights.  However, (I believe) there are times when the lignite company has the right to operations on the surface and could make it hard for the oil and gas people to drill.  For example, if the lignite people have plans to mine in a particular area in the near future, the oil and gas people would likely not elect to put a well there.  (Remember, this is strip mining - huge swaths of land are dug up to do this.)  If you go to www.haynesvilleplay.com, and look at the map of Haynesville well completions in southern DeSoto Parish, you will see an open area around T11N-R11W where there are no wells.  I have to guess that this is where lignite operations are ongoing.

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