What the record can show
- Which tracts and leases a unit designation names, and the unit's acreage.
- Whether each lease's pooling clause allowed the unit as formed: size limits, formations, depths and any consent the clause calls for.
- Unleased and non-participating interests in the unit area, and whether their owners ratified.
- Tract participation: each tract's acres over the unit's acres, or the factors in a recorded agreement.
- Amendments, re-designations and the end of a unit over time.
Documents that matter
- The unit designation and its plat, and any amendments.
- Every lease in the unit area, with its pooling clause.
- Ratifications and joinders.
- State well records: permits, completion reports, directional surveys and field rules.
- In Louisiana, the state's unit order and survey plat for a compulsory unit.
How a landman's work helps
- A tract table: every tract, its owner, lease, pooling authority and participation.
- A check of the designation against each lease's clause, tract by tract.
- Finding interests carried at the wrong participation, or left out.
- Tracing a horizontal well's path across tracts from the permit and the as-drilled plat.
What to send
- The unit or well name, and the county and state.
- The unit designation and the leases you have.
- The interest in question and who claims it.
- The operator and other parties, for a conflicts check.
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.