Articles & Guides
Plain-English explanations on land, minerals, and royalties. No jargon, no agenda.
"Owning land" isn't one single thing — it's a bundle of rights that can be split apart and owned by different people. Once you understand that, everything else in oil and gas stops being confusing.
Read article →A division order arrives in the mail asking for a signature — often with a deadline. Here's what it actually does, what it doesn't change, and exactly what to check before you sign.
Read article →Net mineral acres measure how much of the minerals under a tract you actually own — not how big the tract is. Get this number right and almost every other figure you're quoted falls into place.
Read article →Decimal interest × volume × price, minus taxes and deductions. Once you can see the chain of math behind a royalty check, you can sanity-check any statement that lands in your mailbox.
Read article →They're not the same thing. One owns the whole bundle — including the right to lease and collect a bonus. The other owns only a cost-free share of the income. The difference decides your say and your money.
Read article →A shrinking check is usually normal — production decline, price swings, deductions. A check that stops is different. Here's how to tell which is happening to you, and when to make a call.
Read article →That wall of codes and tiny numbers is really just one calculation repeated per well. Learn the columns — volume, price, decimal, taxes, deductions — and you can verify any payment in minutes.
Read article →Suspense means the operator is holding your money over an unresolved ownership or paperwork question. It's held, not lost. Here's what triggers it and exactly how to get your payments released.
Read article →Royalty income is taxable — reported on a 1099-MISC and taxed as ordinary income. But the depletion deduction can shelter a chunk of it. A plain-English look at the taxes that touch your check.
Read article →It's one of the best-paying jobs most people have never heard of. Nothing comes out of the ground until a landman has done their work first — title research, leasing, division orders, and right-of-way, all in a day's work.
Read article →A working interest is the cost-bearing side of a well: you pay a share of the drilling and operating bills and collect revenue after royalties. It's the opposite of a royalty interest — bigger upside, real risk.
Read article →Working interest is your share of the costs; net revenue interest is your share of the money after royalties. Here's the simple 8/8ths formula that connects them — and why your NRI is always lower than your WI.
Read article →A well has many working interest owners but only one driver — the operator. Everyone else is 'non-op': they pay their share and collect revenue without running the well. Here's how the two roles split the work.
Read article →An AFE is the budget the operator sends before drilling — your chance to approve your share of the costs before the money is spent. Here's what's on it, what signing means, and how it leads to the bills that follow.
Read article →The JOA is the rulebook for partners sharing a well: who operates, how costs and revenue split, and what happens when an owner won't pay. The contract that turns co-owners into a working partnership.
Read article →The lease is the contract everything else flows from — the bonus you're paid up front, the royalty fraction you'll live with for decades, and the clock that decides how long it all lasts. Here's how the pieces fit.
Read article →A producing well can keep a lease alive long after its primary term ends — sometimes for generations. What HBP means, how one old well can hold a whole lease, and how to tell if it applies to your minerals.
Read article →Horizontal wells don't respect property lines, so tracts get combined into units and everyone shares. How pooling works, what forced pooling means for owners who don't sign, and how it changes your royalty math.
Read article →A calm, step-by-step guide for new heirs: the papers to gather, how title actually transfers, why the operator is holding your money in suspense, and how to get everything into your name without panic.
Read article →Your surface deed alone won't tell you. Minerals may have been severed generations ago — here's how to check your deed, the county records, and the well databases to find out what's actually yours.
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