Well, from this corner, here’s the skinny on the mailbox money from the Barnett Shale.
I’ve got about 60,000 square feet, just under an acre-and-a-half. There’s a well across the street that’s producing pretty decently. The pool for the well is about 200 acres, so I get nearly three-quarters of 1 percent of the royalty money.
With the price of gas where it is, my royalty share will be about $40 this month.
For people with houses in town, where the square footage of their property is probably more like 6,000 feet than 60,000, their take on my well would be $4 this month. And if you happen to be in a pool where multiple wells are drilled, let’s say 4, your take would go up to about $16 this month.
And that will go to $32 if the price of gas doubles.
Now most, if not all, gas companies only send out royalty checks when they reach $100. So if you are in a single well pool that’s producing like mine, you’ll be waiting 25 months, just over two years, for a check.
Unless the price of gas goes up by say, 500 percent, in which case you’ll get a $100 check every five months.
Not what anyone had in mind when the keys to the city were given to the gas companies, I’ll bet.
But that’s how the figures break down.
We sold out the future generations for $4/month?
My O & G attorney advised me that it would not be worthwhile to lease our mineral estate because we only have 8/10 acre. He stated that unless we owned a substantial size lot to not sign with anyone, we would get more money by refusing to lease & suing the operator when they took our un-leased interest. Yes it does happen. Follow the permits at the RRC & see how many amended P-12s are listed. Take notice of how vague the survey plat is. There are NO penalties enforced for an operator who files applications that are not completely true or that accidentally leave out un-leased interest. Check out the history of the Whitespot Well in Denton County.