Mineral Rights

[Ucsdryder]

Looking at houses with property along the Front Range of Colorado, I keep coming across mineral rights and leases. They all seem to be similar, leased to an oil and gas company, that doesn’t have surface access, but has a setup 1-3 miles away where they dig down 9000-10000 feet and then come in horizontally to the property.

I have 2 questions. First is safety. I have talked to a couple of people that I trust and both felt that safety was a non issue living on the property.

Second, do I want to retain the rights? Assuming the owner wants to keep them or possibly doesn’t have the rights himself, is there any disadvantage other than potentially losing out on income that the lease might produce.

Hoping to find someone with actual experience vs the I heard fracking was terrible or drill baby drill people.

Ok one more question…. Assuming this forever home becomes a not forever home, what does it look like selling the property without having the mineral rights myself?

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I can't give you an informed opinion on the mineral rights question, but having worked in the industry for 14 years and having owned a home near oil and gas wells for 5 years, I can say that I would have no safety concerns living 1-3 miles from an oil and gas site. Noise, lights, and truck traffic might be a concern, but I wouldn't be worried about safety. The horizontal portion of a well (aka, the "lateral") running under your property is of no concern. The lateral is thousands of feet underground, and you will never know it's there.

Depending on how close you are to the "surface hole" (the aboveground point from which the well is drilled) and what the terrain is like, you may be able to hear noise and see light from drilling rigs, frac equipment, workover rigs, and production equipment. Drilling and fracking are temporary, one-time activities (usually a couple weeks per well). Workovers (performing downhole maintenance or modification using a rig smaller than a drilling rig) are infrequent and short-lived. Production equipment will be on the well site indefinitely, and some of it can be obnoxious (e.g., noise from gas compressors, light and noise from flares). Traffic from 18-wheelers hauling oil and water (if the well isn't connected to pipelines) can also be a potential concern.

I had 3 well pads within 3/4 mile of my former house in Oklahoma. This was on the eastern edge of the plains with no topography and few trees to serve as a screen. The occasional noise and light from drilling, frac, and workovers were short-lived enough that it didn't bother me much. Flaring was uncommon, and those particular well sites fortunately didn't have large compressors. The neighborhood liked to blame all the potholes on tanker trucks, but I don't think the roads around our neighborhood were actually much worse than others in the area without nearby well sites (virtually every road in Canadian County Oklahoma that isn’t a state or US highway is riddled with potholes).

All in all, proximity to oil and gas wells isn't desirable, but it also wouldn't be a deal breaker for me if the wells were 1/2 mile or more from my house. If you have 1-3 miles of buffer, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

 

[wyosteve]

Typically mineral rights are reserved by prior owners, so not too likely you would receive them or any monetary benefit. However, the bigger issue potentially is that the mineral right owner/lessee has the right to access your property to develop the rights (i.e. drilling) if they deem necessary. You are at their mercy, but they would have to pay you for surface access/damage.

 

[Ucsdryder]

Typically mineral rights are reserved by prior owners, so not too likely you would receive them or any monetary benefit. However, the bigger issue potentially is that the mineral right owner/lessee has the right to access your property to develop the rights (i.e. drilling) if they deem necessary. You are at their mercy, but they would have to pay you for surface access/damage.

No surface access is how it’s written.