Old RV Ag said:
Tumble Weed said:
Depending on the size of the lease .... you may want to research a continuous drilling clause. Basically they have to drill another well within 2 years of the completion of the last one, or you can lease the remainder to someone else.
* this is not legal advice
This is a really good point. I'll add it's not just drilling a new well - have the lease such that if they don't drill and someone else will drill they can take over the lease if the first doesn't within a certain time of notification. That way you avoid those who lease only to keep the competition from drilling. And, I'm not an attorney.
While this would be a home run to get into a lease agreement, I've never seen CDOs (Continuous Drilling Obligations) actually end up in leases outside of extremely large, contiguous mineral positions. Think Briscoe Ranch in South Texas.
Additionally, Mississippi is a "Forced Pooling" state, which means that any unleased minerals at the time of drilling a well will be pooled into the unit as defined by the operator's pooling application to the state, and you will receive whatever the MS court and operator deem as current market leasing rates, giving you zero negotiation power. If you refuse to lease because you're not getting some provision you want and your mineral position isn't hundreds or thousands of acres, you will be force-pooled if someone really wants to drill.
The unconventional play in MS right now is the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS), which is not generating very good returns for any company whose acreage isn't in the very small core-of-the-core of the play. It's tough and expensive to drill and complete, and the well results aren't that great. No idea where your mom's land is, but I'd be surprised if it's in the good stuff for the TMS as all of that is already leased. Could also very well be that this is prospective leasing for something else other than the TMS. I don't know MS geology very well at all.
*This is not legal advice