Wanted to see if anyone has heard of this company or dealt with them before, though I didn't find anything negative from a quick search. We received an unsolicited offer from them to purchase one of our producing oil rights. Thanks in advance.

Not dealt with them, but they call or text every few weeks and have done so the last six months or so to buy mine in Brazos Cty. Seems like they (along with lots of these mineral owning companies) shoot a spray pattern and see what they hit/buy

Same as tlh - should probably hear them out to just end the harassment. But I'm sure the offer will be garbage…and less than my WWR holdings.

He Who Shall Be Unnamed said:

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I've never understood why someone would sell mineral rights, unless they are about to die and have no heirs or favorite charities.

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I'm mostly curious about what they might offer, but I tend to agree.

EnronAg said:

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Same as tlh - should probably hear them out to just end the harassment. But I'm sure the offer will be garbage…and less than my WWR holdings.

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Probably right, they are not likely to make an offer remotely favorable. To even consider it I'd need to learn how to value the holding.

NE PA Ag said:

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He Who Shall Be Unnamed said:

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I've never understood why someone would sell mineral rights, unless they are about to die and have no heirs or favorite charities.

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I'm mostly curious about what they might offer, but I tend to agree.

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I get them all of the time for mineral rights I own. I have a special place I put them before I take the rest of the mail inside. They also call my cellphone. So annoying.

EnronAg said:

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Same as tlh - should probably hear them out to just end the harassment. But I'm sure the offer will be garbage…and less than my WWR holdings.

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I did that once just for fun and the guy tried everything from bull**** to bullying to name calling. They are predators.

He Who Shall Be Unnamed said:

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I've never understood why someone would sell mineral rights, unless they are about to die and have no heirs or favorite charities.

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Had a client with substantial real estate holdings as well as substantial mineral interests. Land rich, cash not so much. He got in a bind for needing cash, not in a hurry for it, but known in advance. He talked to me about the taxation of selling some of his mineral interests. I told him that I would not and suggested that he sell some of the scattered real estate holdings, most of which he had not set foot on in two decades and much of which he had never set foot on (he was a lawyer, and most of the real estate he inherited from his dad who also was a lawyer and had acquired these tracts mostly from legal work he had done). Seems like he needed $50k to $75k to make the issue go away.

He sold part of his minerals. Within five years, they had run seismic on some of his stuff and wells were drilled and he was getting $1 million to $1.6 million annually and did so for six or seven years. I think he sold about 1/4th of his minerals so it turned out to be quite costly for him.

Thanks for everyone's replies. Very enlightening.

The lesson I have learned is not to engage, or you can end up with even more attempts to contact and in different ways. They may or may not have my cell at this point (I typically don't answer numbers I don't recognize), but I have no doubt that would be part of what they are trying to get when asking you to contact them.

these are the kinds of situations that the folks cold calling dream about

Diggity said:

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these are the kinds of situations that the folks cold calling dream about

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Yep, that and older people on limited income that see it as a chance to get some money for something they don't know the value of. I think they are comfortable getting a little cash and still owning the surface.

This is a good thread. Hopefully we can all learn more about mineral rights - a murky and misunderstood segment of property ownership.

Is there a statewide database with mineral rights ownership clearly stated? Or is it up to each county? I'm thinking like a county tax assessor's searchable site.

I bleed maroon said:

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Is there a statewide database with mineral rights ownership clearly stated? Or is it up to each county? I'm thinking like a county tax assessor's searchable site.

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Nope. In most cases you go to the county courthouse and follow the chain of title back as far as you can, to find all the points at which minerals could have been fully or partially severed from the surface estate

For clarification:
Were they wanting to just purchase the revenue stream from the producing well?
Or
Were they wanting to purchase the minerals, production etc?
Or
Were they wanting to lease the acreage to possibly drill on in the next few years?

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I bleed maroon said:

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Is there a statewide database with mineral rights ownership clearly stated? Or is it up to each county? I'm thinking like a county tax assessor's searchable site.

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Nope. In most cases you go to the county courthouse and follow the chain of title back as far as you can, to find all the points at which minerals could have been fully or partially severed from the surface estate

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That's what I suspected. It seems to me that this would be a good grass-roots non-partisan property rights reform issue that most Texans could get behind. The oil & gas lobby probably likes the opaque nature of the status quo, so I doubt they would get behind it, and obviously the scam artists that prey on sheep would be loudly against it.

As a practical example, I have a couple of pieces of property that I am unsure if I have any portion of the mineral rights. My bad on not investigating, but it should be easier to figure out than the current situation.

Funding it is likely a big objection. How about using a small part of the "rainy day fund" to prime the pump to set up a system maintained with county tax assessors, and then have a small transaction "recording fee" for mineral rights transfers going forward (user fee)?

I bleed maroon said:

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Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I bleed maroon said:

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Is there a statewide database with mineral rights ownership clearly stated? Or is it up to each county? I'm thinking like a county tax assessor's searchable site.

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Nope. In most cases you go to the county courthouse and follow the chain of title back as far as you can, to find all the points at which minerals could have been fully or partially severed from the surface estate

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That's what I suspected. It seems to me that this would be a good grass-roots non-partisan property rights reform issue that most Texans could get behind. The oil & gas lobby probably likes the opaque nature of the status quo, so I doubt they would get behind it, and obviously the scam artists that prey on sheep would be loudly against it.

As a practical example, I have a couple of pieces of property that I am unsure if I have any portion of the mineral rights. My bad on not investigating, but it should be easier to figure out than the current situation.

Funding it is likely a big objection. How about using a small part of the "rainy day fund" to prime the pump to set up a system maintained with county tax assessors, and then have a small transaction "recording fee" for mineral rights transfers going forward (user fee)?

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Oil companies have to pay landmen and title attorneys to come up with all of this info for each well they drill. The oil and gas lobby would absolutely support the offloading of these costs to the states taxpayers, but why is it taxpayers responsibility to research what you do or do not own?

TxAg20 said:

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I bleed maroon said:

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Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I bleed maroon said:

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Is there a statewide database with mineral rights ownership clearly stated? Or is it up to each county? I'm thinking like a county tax assessor's searchable site.

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Nope. In most cases you go to the county courthouse and follow the chain of title back as far as you can, to find all the points at which minerals could have been fully or partially severed from the surface estate

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That's what I suspected. It seems to me that this would be a good grass-roots non-partisan property rights reform issue that most Texans could get behind. The oil & gas lobby probably likes the opaque nature of the status quo, so I doubt they would get behind it, and obviously the scam artists that prey on sheep would be loudly against it.

As a practical example, I have a couple of pieces of property that I am unsure if I have any portion of the mineral rights. My bad on not investigating, but it should be easier to figure out than the current situation.

Funding it is likely a big objection. How about using a small part of the "rainy day fund" to prime the pump to set up a system maintained with county tax assessors, and then have a small transaction "recording fee" for mineral rights transfers going forward (user fee)?

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Oil companies have to pay landmen and title attorneys to come up with all of this info for each well they drill. The oil and gas lobby would absolutely support the offloading of these costs to the states taxpayers, but why is it taxpayers responsibility to research what you do or do not own?

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Fair point. But why then do we taxpayers foot the bill for a database tracking cars, real estate, and business personal property?

All I'm asking for is for them to maintain a database, so the research doesn't have to be done each time.

Mineral ownership is so contentious that most (all?) states don't charge property tax on mineral interest, presumably because it's such a tangled web. An oil company i used to work for was part of a consortium that had a goal to capture and track mineral rights using blockchain technologies, not sure if that has any momentum or not but there is definitely an initiative

I am a partner in a company that buys mineral rights and working interest, but we aren't cold calling people. It can be pretty complex at times but it's a great business imo. Our bread and butter is working interest but we have started buying more minerals too. Being a competitive bidder for minerals from sophisticated sellers is difficult. Definitely not "pennies on the dollar" for us, but we aren't just trying to dig up suckers by cold calling.

Go find it on RRC website. Odds are there is a permit for that acreage.

If you're going to sell mineral rights to any of these mineral buying companies, just call the nearest 2 or 3 operators and you are likely to get a substantially better offer. Mineral rights guys are generally just middlemen - even if they claim they have no plans to flip, they're likely to sell the whole company as a package once they get enough.

That's a great point. I had almost forgotten that a few years back, our producer let us know through our landman that they would beat any offer we got from a 3rd party (within reason, I suppose, but that wasn't stated) if any of us were interested in selling royalties.

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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Mineral ownership is so contentious that most (all?) states don't charge property tax on mineral interest, presumably because it's such a tangled web. An oil company i used to work for was part of a consortium that had a goal to capture and track mineral rights using blockchain technologies, not sure if that has any momentum or not but there is definitely an initiative

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States may not, but counties and school districts do. We got in a situation with one of our holdings in Andrews County where they came directly to us to collect back property taxes the operator apparently wasn't paying on behalf of the owners. Wasn't a lot of money, but time spent dealing with it was a pain.

Whenever the mineral hound tells you they aren't flipping it, it's a lie nearly every time.

Just tell them, we will put a "mineral deed cannot be assigned" clause in there. That will be the last phone call you ever get from them.

He Who Shall Be Unnamed said:

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I've never understood why someone would sell mineral rights, unless they are about to die and have no heirs or favorite charities.

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Go ask the Haynesville mineral owners who were holding out how that worked out for them. The 'retain no matter what' isn't a good strategy either. Once an area has been condemned or a crappy well gets drilled right next door, you'll wish you did. A better strategy is to get smart on the activity around you and learn about the possibilities of the area being drilled.

Property tax or severance? Why would the operator pay the mineral owner's property tax?