Landowner Oil and Gas Newsletter informs and educates on leasing mineral rights

Curtis Talley Jr., Michigan State University Extension - July 13, 2011

Landowner Oil and Gas Newsletter provides information to assist landowners in negotiating oil and gas leases.

For many landowners, leasing rights to drill for oil and gas is a new experience. Many experienced landowners have discovered that managing the mineral rights can earn as much or more per acre as agricultural activities. This management includes a carefully crafted oil and gas lease. Oil and gas leases are complicated legal documents that are generally written by the company for the benefit of the company. As such, many mineral rights owners are confused when reading oil and gas leases. Even after reading them several times, they still do not understand them. It is the mineral rights owner’s responsibility to know what the lease means and its impact on any agricultural business. Landowners need to understand that the terms in a lease can be negotiated so the lease provides much more favorable and profitable terms to the landowner.

Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) is publishing an electronic Oil and Gas Newsletter that educates and informs mineral rights owners about the leasing of oil and gas rights and the industry in general. These newsletters can be found on the MSUE website at www.msue.msu.edu/oilandgas. If you want to ensure that you receive the newsletter in a timely manner, contact Curtis Talley Jr., MSUE Farm Management Educator for Michigan State University Extension at talleycu@anr.msu.edu to be placed on the electronic Landowner Oil and Gas Newsletter mailing list. If you prefer a printed version, there will be a charge for postage and mailing. MSUE has additional information on the oil and gas website. Two popular documents are “Landowner Information for Oil and Gas/Mineral Leases,” which discusses lease negotiation and what the language in an oil and gas lease means and “Oil and Gas Resources for Landowners” which includes a list of attorneys that work with landowners in oil and gas leasing.

The Landowner Oil and Gas Newsletter also has information about hydraulic fracturing, which is a method of developing a well to improve its oil and gas production. “Hydraulic Fracturing of Natural Gas Wells in Michigan,” produced by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, discusses this technique from the regulator’s perspective. Dean Solomon, a MSUE senior educator discusses the controversial aspects of this technique in the document “Fracking—The Controversy Continues.”

If you need any additional information about oil and gas leasing, or the industry in general, contact Curtis Talley Jr. at talleycu@anr.msu.edu.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).