Mineral rights and oil and gas leases tend to be a bit more complicated than ordinary surface rights leases. When you sell or lease a home, there is a pretty obvious boundary (oftentimes marked by a fence) that designates what the lessee can control. Below the surface, however, the spaces occupied by precious mineral reserves rarely follow the same pattern.

If an oil reserve is under multiple different parcels of land, it can still be entirely depleted from a single well. For this reason, mineral rights owners often enter into contract agreements to ensure that they are able to benefit from the sale of the oil or gas below their property.

Pooling and Unitization

Pooling and unitization are two of the most common methods for the consolidation of mineral rights. Although the two terms are often used in place of one another, they actually refer to different kinds of agreements.

What is Pooling?

Pooling is a process that combines several tracts of land together in order to cover the area of a single oil well. In a pooling agreement, all of the parties own their portion of any oil that is produced from within the pooled land. Essentially, instead of digging a new well on each separate piece of land, the reserve is drilled in the best way possible and each owner can benefit from the sale of precious minerals with oil royalties.

What is Unitization?

Unitization is a process that merges different pieces of land together across an entire oil field. Unlike pooling, unitization can combine the production of many different oil wells into one shared contact.

Compulsory and Voluntary Pooling and Unitization

Voluntary pooling and unitization agreements occur when independent owners agree to work together. The documents can be signed by the owner themselves, a legal representative, or heir. Agreements are generally made to be mutually beneficial. Voluntary pooling offers can be declined without any consequence.

Compulsory, also known as forced, pooling or unitization is a mandatory consolidation of oil and gas leases. They are conducted by a regulatory committee, most commonly the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Joint Operating Agreements in Oil and Gas Leases

Lastly, two active oil and gas leases can be combined into what is known as a “joint operating agreement (JOA),” or a “joint lease.” In a JOA, operators agree upon a community lease in which assets are shared and new royalty percentages are defined. In addition to oil and gas agreements, joint leases are common across other industries such as health care.

If you are selling or leasing your mineral rights, you may have some competing offers sitting on your desk. In an oil and gas lease, you can potentially earn a large amount of money over time. This is through the acquisition of oil and gas royalties. Does a company particularly have an interest in your mineral rights? If yes, then you may even receive a hefty offer on oil and gas lease bonus payment. In this article, we will make understanding oil and gas easier. We are going to explore the most commonly asked questions regarding lease bonus payments.

What is Oil and Gas Lease Bonus Payment?

A lease bonus payment is an amount of money you will receive as payment immediately. This is upon signing an oil and gas lease. Much like “signing bonuses” in professional sports. This is the lump sum of cash receiveable prior to a sale. Moreover, the purpose is in order to entice a quick contract completion.

In an oil and gas lease, the contract secures an oil and gas company’s right to explore a property’s subsurface. If the production never actually starts or the operation is a failure, the initial bonus payment may be the signer’s only form of income on the property in the event that there are no oil and gas royalties.

When Do You Receive Oil and Gas Bonus Payments?

Of course, nothing is “immediate,” as the money will not magically appear in your checking account after signing the contract. The general rule of thumb is that oil and gas companies will receive a request to pay out the bonus payment 60-90 days after signing the lease.

How Much Money Can I Receive as a Lease Bonus?

An oil and gas bonus payment is completely negotiable and is largely dependent on the size of the property, the number of wells, past production, future estimates, and the current price of minerals. Oil and gas contracts are not required to be made public record and vary heavily between states, so an average bonus payment is fairly difficult to calculate.

Oil and Gas Lease Bonus Tax Treatment

Under the eyes of the IRS, oil and gas lease bonus payment is considered “advanced royalties.” They are taxed as ordinary income. In most cases, tax on oil and gas lease bonus payment is made within the same year of signing the contract.

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If you own mineral rights and receive oil royalties, then you are probably curious about the oil well production levels. In an oil and gas lease on your property, you may have one or more oil wells on the land that is being drilled by the oil company.

How Many Barrels of Oil Does a Well Produce?

With oil royalties, you can earn a direct percentage of the sale of oil barrels that are extracted and sold from producing oil wells. Although there are wells of all shapes in sizes across the globe, in the article, we are going to explore the national averages for daily, annual, and lifetime production from oil wells in the United States.

Average Daily Oil Well Production

In the early days of American oil exploration, flowing wells in modern Texas are rumored to have the capacity for up to 100,000 barrels per day. On the other hand, there are countless shallow wells across the country that have been dug to accommodate no more than a single barrel each day.

Today, most oil operations are performed by large companies working to produce as much as possible while the well is in use. When a large oil well begins producing, successful drills can expect a daily production of anywhere from 500 to 5,000 barrels per day.

Average Annual Oil Well Production

In order to calculate the average annual production of an oil well, let’s use some real numbers to provide a helpful figure. In 2014, Texas led the nation in producing 3.17 billion barrels per day. It also is the most heavily explored region in the world with an estimated 151,605 active oil wells. By this calculation, the average annual production of an oil well in Texas is roughly 21,000 barrels of oil per year.

Average Lifetime Oil Well Production

In general, an oil well is at its most productive during the initial exploration and drilling. After extended daily use and depending on environmental factors and chosen technologies, an oil well’s production will slowly decrease until the operation is deemed unprofitable. Oil wells typically last between 15 and 30 years. As an example, an oil well in the Bakken fields of the United States can produce roughly 540,000 barrels over the course of its lifetime.

Oil wells come in all shapes and sizes. All across the United States, there are oil wells being built, used, and torn down, and thanks to over 100 years of drilling history, the public now knows a lot about the ins and outs of a typical drilling operation. In this article, we are going to explore the average lifespan of an oil well (and gas well also).

The Average Lifespan of an Oil Well

In general, it is commonly accepted that an oil or gas well can expect to last between 20 and 40 years of significant production. With that said, new technologies are constantly being developed to make oil operations longer and more efficient. If a well is not being tapped at the maximum rate, it may last way longer than average. In fact, there is an active oil well in Pennsylvania that was first drilled over a century ago!

The Different Classifications of an Oil Well (or Gas Well)

When people ask, “How long does an oil well last?” they are typically referring to a well that is actively being drilled to extract and sell precious minerals. That is what the industry refers to as an “Active Well.” There are several other stages an oil or gas well may go through in its lifetime. They are as follows:

• Inactive – A well that has ceased production for 1 year but is expected to produce again.
• Suspended – A well that has been inactive for a long period of time, and requires special effort to reactivate, but is expected to produce in the future.
• Abandoned – A permanently shutdown well in which all of the equipment has been safely removed.
• Orphaned – Abandoned wells with no owner claiming the rights

What Happens When an Oil Well is Dry?

An oil well “dries up” when it has been drilled sufficiently enough so that it no longer produces a profitable amount of oil. When a company decides to end a drilling operation, the land is often sold to another owner. The extraction equipment is removed and the land is reclaimed or restored. In areas close to residential homes, significant landscaping is performed and evidence of an oil well is generally completely erased.