Where the facts sit
- The lease: its primary term, its habendum clause and every savings clause, with the number of days each allows.
- State production records: monthly volumes reported for the lease or the well. In Texas, the Railroad Commission's production data; in Louisiana, the state's records online through SONRIS.
- Well records: permits, completions, workovers and plugging reports, with dates.
- County records: releases, extensions, ratifications, affidavits about production, and new leases on the same land.
- Payment records: division orders, check stubs and shut-in payments, usually produced in discovery.
What a landman does with them
- Reads every clause that can carry the lease past a gap, and notes its period.
- Builds a month-by-month table of production, operations and payments.
- Marks each gap and sets it beside the clause that applies to it.
- Checks the pooling: a well on another tract in the unit may be the one that counts.
- Lists every recorded instrument after a gap that recognizes the lease.
What the timeline does not decide
Whether production was in paying quantities, or whether a given gap ended the lease, depends on the law and on all the facts together. The timeline gives both sides the same facts to argue from, each one tied to its source.
We are landmen, not attorneys. This page describes the land record in general terms. It is not legal advice, and every matter turns on its own instruments.