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Permalink Reply by Chad Ellis on January 10, 2025 at 8:32

What are the lease names? I'm not sure what information you might need, so I can't effectively tell you where to look?

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Permalink Reply by vigo on January 30, 2025 at 18:30

The unit is variously listed as Northeast Hallsville Crane Unit or N. E. Hallsville Crane Unit and contains 7,642.02 acres.

Field # is 3829150 and Field Name is Hallsville NE (Pettit).

The O&G Lease was done in 1948 with Hunt Oil.

The unit was declared in 1962 and the current Certificate  of Effectiveness is dated 1964.

The earliest Division Order I have is dated 10/01/83. The earliest production documentation I have is from 1985 and the earliest royalty Check Detail is from 1991. The decimal interest has remained unchanged from the 1983 Division Order down to the one I signed a few years back as the heir. Recently, responding to my inquiry into why I'd not been paid for 2024 production reported to the RRC, I was told there was an error in my decimal interest (the one unchanged since 1983) which resulted in my royalty being overpaid. So current royalty is being withheld in order to recoup the over-payment.  Had I not inquired I would not have known as I've not received a new Division Order reflecting any change.

Isn't the operator obligated to pay royalty in accord with the most current Division Order.

Wouldn't the operator be required to notify me of the error, explain the change and issue a new Division Order?

So... I'm digging into all the deed, lease and unit agreement, etc. documents filed in the county records. And I'm hoping someone who knows their way around the RRC can suggest where I might look there for information which might shed light on this.

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Permalink Reply by Rock Man on January 30, 2025 at 19:15

I can't help with navigating the Tx RRC site as your issues, but I did some quick research on this waterflood unit as to production. The attached PDF has this info (from ENVERUS) and shows the monthly oil and water production (on log scale) plus a chart showing this production for the past two years.

Very marginal production that is steadily decreasing.

Attachments:

• NE Hallsville Crane Pettet Info.pdf, 106 KB

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Permalink Reply by Hale Yayuh on February 4, 2025 at 1:13

Just as a FWIW, you are asking about and, apparently, seeking info that might require professional help, such as a highly experienced landman. An attorney would/could cost a small fortune on something like this. Ascertaining who owns what in a field like that, and many decades old, could take a tremendous amount of skilled landwork. For you to know as much as you do shows that someone (you?) has some research skills but it could be a giant can of worms. You just have to make a decision whether it's worth it. If you could buddy up to a landman or hire on as a landman to learn some basic (Texas) landwork skills, that would help!

On some questions such as this, it's not impossible but will be extremely challenging to learn the answers you seek via an internet forum. Versus actually researching in the clerk's office. At minimum, it could take months/years and require you to attract those who know the answers and are willing to post online. You also might have to hire a skilled Texas oil and gas lawyer to help with some questions. Bummer, isn't it! Oil and gas can be really complicated. Also, BTW, using the RRC site can be extremely frustrating when seeking info. It might be there but finding it is the problem. Of course, some of the answers you seek might be found only in the county records, not the RRC. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on February 4, 2025 at 2:50

I agree with Hale as to how complex and arcane this type of research can be.  vigo, if you want to take a somewhat deeper look at this without spending a lot of money I suggest you communicate with Julie. She is a wiz at the RRC database, skilled at searching public records and in fact does a lot of my Texas research for me.  You might want to send her a message and discuss this further.

https://gohaynesvilleshale.com/profile/jffree1?xg_source=profiles_m...

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Permalink Reply by vigo 13 hours ago

Skip,

As always, of all the helpful feedback, yours is by far the most helpful. It would be difficult to over-state how much we all appreciate the tremendous value you contribute to this forum. I'll look into how to contact and connect with Julie at RRC (maybe you could provide some help in that direction).

I am hoping to learn how to discover in the RRC records developments pertinent to this and two other Texas properties in which I have interest... things such as drilling permits, well test and completion records ,and declaration of production units. I can do this well enough on SONRIS for the interests I have in Northeastern Louisiana, but for me, comparatively, RRC records are opaque.

Hale,

You are right. When I decide to apply myself, I can readily acquire whatever research skills I need. Thanks to dramatic improvements in access to Harrison County records, I've identified and obtained PDFs of all the relevant documents for this property back to the early 1900's. This journey has been interesting in itself as I've been able to piece together bits of history from several generations of my family in which I've found interesting background behind family history I was only vaguely aware of. It is interesting to discover that one's grandfather once acquired large holdings of land, lost it all due to apparent default on personal promissory notes, regained use of the land through the intervention of a son-in-law who bought half the land back, and then was able to recover the other half himself (probably with additional assistance from the same son-in-law). What I discovered, which mostly took place before my birth, sheds light on puzzling family dynamics I observed growing up but never understood.

Regarding the O&G property, I also discovered that some decimal interest errors were made in the original Division Orders from the early 1960's and passed on operator to operator unquestioned over the years to the present. With all of the key documents in hand (deeds, leases, unit agreements, certificates of effectiveness, probate records, etc.) I was able to establish the basis for my interest and demonstrate conclusively that the current operator is indeed right about the decimal interest being incorrectly stated for all these years. I was able to, independently of the operator, validate the corrected decimal interest he provided, I even "reverse engineered" the equations to solve for the lease acreage value that yields the erroneous number and found an acreage value that was in no way derivable from the actual acreage numbers of the tracts involved no matter how I scrambled, rearranged, or misapplied them. Someone back then apparently picked a number out of the air unrelated to any any of the actual acreages which then became the basis for royalty payments for six decades. I wonder how many interest owners were affected besides myself.

[FYI: Unit Agreements can be quite convoluted as in "Tract AAA consists of BBB acres out of CCC (the leased acreage) excepting DDD acres contributed to Tract XXX and EEE acres contributed to Tract YYY" and so on. Now, extend that convolution across 1000+ different lessees and 70+ Tracts and you can see how errors might be introduced, especially before PCs and Excel!]

At this point, the future production for this long-declining unit is so small that obtaining legal help with this would be a money losing proposition. Fortunately, my time was not wasted because I now have all of the on-the-ground facts pertaining to my interest so that, should any shale gas or lithium plays develop there in the future (a likely prospect), once I have the definition of any production units in which my interest is included, I can now compute for myself what my share should be, for which the existing Production Unit information would have no relevance.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant 10 hours ago

Thanks, vigo.  You can send Julie a private message on her personal page with the link I posted.  If that doesn't work, let me know and I will find a way to get you in touch with her.  When it comes to navigating the RCC database, she is the best.

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