Mineral Leases, Split Estate, Oil Revenue, and Updates

Several newspaper articles have confused the complicated issues of split estate and mineral leases, so it should be pointed out that to lease mineral rights, may not prevent oil & gas drilling and development due to "forced pooling." Such as, "a company may pool two or more leases to create a tract that is sufficient in size to form a drilling unit for a single well" (Oil & Gas Accountability Project [OGAP]). And the State expects the entity leasing State minerals to make every effort to extract minerals. Otherwise, the lease is taken back by the State. Even if individuals could purchase private mineral rights and were to refuse to lease them to Oil & Gas drillers, forced pooling could pool those minerals for extraction.

For more information about mineral rights, split estate, forced pooling and so forth, please go to the OGAP site http://www.earthworks.org or http://www.ogap.org to order or download, "Oil and Gas at Your Door?" Given that most surface property owners in New Mexico do not own the minerals beneath, the more important question may be not who owns your minerals but, if leased, who has the minerals leased. (Also, see Action Alert: On-site Burial of Oil & GAs Pit Waste.)

Oil revenue Op Ed, "County, don't bite oil-revenue carrot." Also, a letter to the editor.

On October 30th, please tune in to "The Journey Home" at 4:00pm and listen to an interview between Diego Mulligan and Drilling Santa Fe on KSFR, 101.1 FM.

Recent KSFR oil & gas stories, click on Public NewsRoom and listen to the Oct. 22nd and 25th Podcasts.