Negotiating an Oil and Gas Lease: A Practical Guide for Landowners

Summary. This guide is written for the landowner across the table from a landman. It explains what to establish before responding to any offer, how to value what you own, and then works through every clause worth negotiating in order of economic significance — the royalty fraction and the deduction language that can matter more than the fraction, the primary term, the Pugh and depth clauses, shut-in and savings provisions, pooling limits, and warranty. It then covers the separate surface use agreement, what to do when the first check arrives, and how to verify the decimal that determines every payment thereafter.

Here is the asymmetry a landowner faces.

The person at the door negotiates oil and gas leases every working day, has a form drafted by the operator's counsel, knows what the acreage is worth, knows what the neighbors signed, and works for someone else. The landowner has done this never, has no idea what the terms mean, and is being told there is a deadline.

There is almost never a real deadline. And the terms in the form the landman presents are the operator's opening position, not a standard deal.

Step 1 — Before you respond to anything

Do not sign. Do not initial. Do not cash anything.

Establish what you actually own. Order a title search or a mineral runsheet, or at minimum pull the deed chain yourself from the county records — most are online and free. You are looking for:

• Whether the minerals were ever severed from the surface.
• What fraction you own, expressed in net mineral acres: your fractional mineral interest × the gross acreage.
• Whether you hold the executive right (the right to lease) or only a royalty interest.
• Whether any prior lease is still of record and whether it has terminated.
• Whether any dormant mineral act in your state has affected the interest.

Find out what is happening around you. Every producing state maintains a public database of permits, completions, and production. Look up your section and the surrounding sections. A permit filed a mile away tells you more about your leverage than anything the landman will say.

Ask what the neighbors signed. Leases are recorded. Bonus amounts frequently are not stated in the recorded memorandum, but the royalty fraction and the term often are, and landowner associations in active plays share terms.

Get a second offer. Operators and brokers compete. A single unsolicited offer is a starting point, not a market.

Hire a lawyer who does this. Not your general practitioner. An oil and gas lawyer in the state where the minerals are, for a few hours. On any meaningful acreage, this is among the highest-return legal expenditures an ordinary person can make.

Step 2 — Understand what the landman is and is not

The landman is a contractor or employee acquiring leases for an operator or a broker. Many are knowledgeable and straightforward. None of them represents you, none owes you a duty, and the terms they present are their client's.

Things landmen say, and what they mean:

Be courteous and be slow. Nothing about a mineral interest expires because you took three weeks.

Step 3 — The terms, in order of what they are worth

1. Royalty fraction

The headline number. One-eighth (0.125) was the historical standard; three-sixteenths (0.1875) and one-fourth (0.25) are achievable in competitive areas. The difference between one-eighth and three-sixteenths is a fifty percent increase in every royalty check for the life of the well.

2. The deduction language — frequently worth more than the fraction

Gas must be gathered, compressed, dehydrated, treated, processed, and transported before it is sold. Those post-production costs can consume a substantial share of the sale price, and whether they are deducted from your royalty depends on your state's default rule and on what the lease says.

Ask for a gross proceeds clause:

Lessee shall pay royalty on the gross proceeds received by Lessee or any affiliate of Lessee from the sale of oil, gas, and other products, without deduction, directly or indirectly, for any cost of gathering, compression, dehydration, treating, separation, processing, fractionation, marketing, or transportation, and without deduction for any cost incurred to make the product marketable or to move it to the point of sale. If any product is sold to an affiliate of Lessee, royalty shall be calculated on the price received by such affiliate in an arm's-length sale to an unaffiliated third party.

The affiliate sentence matters as much as the first one, because the alternative structure is a sale to a related company at a low price with the margin taken downstream where royalty does not reach.

3. The Pugh clause

Without it, production anywhere on the leased premises — or in a pooled unit containing any part of it — holds the entire lease indefinitely, at the original terms, forever.

Ask for both:

Horizontal Pugh. At the expiration of the primary term, or upon cessation of continuous operations thereafter, this lease shall terminate as to all lands not included within a producing unit.

Vertical Pugh. At the expiration of the primary term, this lease shall terminate as to all depths below 100 feet beneath the stratigraphic equivalent of the deepest formation from which production has been obtained.

Also consider a retained acreage clause limiting how many acres a single well holds, and a continuous development clause requiring a new well every six or twelve months to hold undeveloped acreage.

4. Primary term

Shorter is better. Three years is a common negotiated term; five is a common opening ask. Resist an option to extend, or price it — an option to extend the primary term for two more years should cost a second bonus payment at the same or a higher rate.

5. Bonus

Per net mineral acre, paid on signing (or on title approval, which should be a stated number of days). Negotiate it, and negotiate the payment mechanism — a bank draft with a long title-approval period is not the same as cash.

6. Shut-in royalty

Limits the period a lease can be held without production. Ask for: a meaningful amount per acre; a limit of two consecutive years and a total of no more than four; a requirement that the well actually be capable of production in paying quantities; and a requirement of written notice to the lessor.

7. Pooling limits

If a pooling clause is included — and it will be — limit it:

Lessee may pool the leased premises into units not exceeding [640] acres for gas and [160] acres for oil, plus a tolerance of ten percent, and only with wells actually located within the unit. Lessee shall file a written unit designation of record and provide a copy to Lessor within thirty days. Lessee shall not amend or reduce a unit after formation without Lessor's written consent. Royalty shall be allocated on a surface acreage basis.

8. Warranty

The lease form will make you warrant title. Strike it.

This lease is made without warranty of title, express or implied, and Lessor's liability shall be limited to a return of consideration actually received.

If your title turns out to be less than you thought, a warranty makes you liable for it.

9. Other terms worth asking for

• No deduction of production or severance taxes from royalty beyond your proportionate share.
• Prompt payment with interest at a stated rate on late payments, in addition to any statutory right.
• Audit rights — the right to examine the lessee's records supporting payments, with a four-year lookback and the lessee paying audit costs if an underpayment above a threshold is found.
• Detailed check stubs — property, well, month, volume, price, decimal, gross value, each deduction by category, taxes, and net.
• Notice of assignment and a requirement that any assignee assume the lease obligations.
• No surface use without a separate agreement (see Step 4) — or, at minimum, a prohibition on surface operations within a stated distance of the residence, water wells, and other improvements.
• Free gas for domestic use, where customary in the area.
• A release of record requirement when the lease terminates, with a deadline and a penalty.
• Most-favored-nations, where obtainable, entitling you to any better terms given to a neighbor in the same unit.
• Arbitration or venue, chosen deliberately.

Step 4 — The surface use agreement, negotiated separately

If you own the surface and the operator will use it, this is a separate negotiation and it is where your practical quality of life is decided. Your leverage is highest before any operations begin and nearly zero afterward.

Address:

• Location of the pad, roads, pipelines, and facilities, by survey and by exhibit, and a requirement of consent to any change.
• Setbacks from the residence, barns, water wells, ponds, and property lines.
• Size of the disturbed area, with a maximum.
• Access route and gates, cattle guards, and fencing.
• Water — whether the operator may take water from your wells or ponds, and at what price.
• Produced water and waste — no pits, or lined pits with removal deadlines; no disposal on the property.
• Dust, noise, lighting, and hours, with specific standards.
• Damages — per acre for the pad and roads, per rod for pipelines, and per item for structures, crops, timber, and livestock losses, at stated rates, with an annual payment for the duration of use.
• Reclamation — specific standards, a deadline after cessation, topsoil handling, reseeding with a specified mix, and security in the form of a bond or escrow.
• Indemnity for injury and contamination, and insurance with the landowner as an additional insured.
• Baseline testing of water wells before operations, at the operator's cost, with results provided.
• A prohibition on assignment of the agreement without assumption of its obligations.

Several states also provide statutory surface damage rights with notice, negotiation, and appraisal procedures — check yours, and negotiate above the statutory floor.

Step 5 — After the lease

Record the lease or a memorandum of it, and keep the original.

Calendar the primary term expiration and the dates any savings clause becomes relevant.

Watch the state agency's permit and production database for your section.

When a well is drilled and completed, a division order will arrive. Two rules:

Verify the decimal. It should equal (your net mineral acres ÷ total unit acres) × your royalty fraction. Ask the operator for the calculation and check it against your title. An error here repeats for the life of the well.

Do not sign anything that changes the lease. Historically, division orders were drafted to add deduction authority, alter valuation, or add warranties. Many states now provide by statute that a division order may not amend the lease and that payment may not be withheld for refusing to sign a nonconforming one. Read it, strike anything that alters the lease, and return it with a cover note.

Then check the checks. The stub should show volume, price, your decimal, gross value, each deduction by category, taxes, and net. If it shows only a net number, ask for more — several states require detailed statements. And if payments stop, ask in writing which of these it is: shut-in, accumulated below threshold, title suspense, operator change, or cessation of production.

Step 7 — Two worked negotiations

A. The competitive play

The situation. Ruth owns 240 net mineral acres in a section where three operators are actively leasing. A landman offers $500 per acre, one-eighth royalty, five-year term with a two-year option.

What she does. She pulls the county records and confirms her ownership. She checks the state agency's database and finds four permits within two miles filed in the past ninety days. She tells the landman she will respond in three weeks, and she contacts the two other operators.

What comes back. A second operator offers $1,100 per acre and three-sixteenths. She goes back to the first with that, and to the third.

The final lease: $1,650 per acre bonus ($396,000), one-fifth royalty, three-year primary term with no option, gross proceeds with no deductions and affiliate sales addressed, horizontal and vertical Pugh clauses, shut-in limited to two consecutive and four total years, pooling capped at 640 acres with no post-formation amendment, no warranty, audit rights with a four-year lookback, and detailed check-stub requirements.

What the three weeks were worth. Bonus: $276,000 more than the opening offer. Royalty: a sixty percent increase on every check for decades. And the deduction language, which on gas in that basin has historically been worth another fifteen to twenty-five percent of gross royalty.

B. The quiet county

The situation. Marcus owns 60 net mineral acres in a county with almost no activity. One landman, no competition, an offer of $75 per acre and one-eighth.

The honest assessment. He has very little leverage on price. He has substantial leverage on terms, because the operator wants the acreage and the marginal cost of better clauses is low when no well may ever be drilled.

What he asks for and gets: the bonus stays near the offer. But he obtains a three-year primary term with no option, a horizontal Pugh clause, no warranty, a shut-in cap of two years, a pooling size limit, a prohibition on surface operations within 1,000 feet of the residence and the stock pond, and a requirement that any surface use be governed by a separate written agreement.

Why this matters even if nothing is ever drilled. If a play develops in eight years, his acreage is not tied up under a 1/8 lease with unlimited holding. It is free, and he negotiates again in a market that has changed completely.

The general lesson from both. Bonus is a function of competition, which the landowner does not control. Terms are a function of asking, which the landowner does control entirely — and the terms are usually worth more.

Step 6 — What a good outcome looks like

A landowner who does the work typically ends up with, relative to the form first presented:

Of those, the two worth the most are usually the deduction language and the Pugh clause — and neither appears in any form the landowner will be handed.

Step 8 — Special situations

You own only a fraction, and the co-owners disagree. Each cotenant of a mineral estate may generally lease their own undivided interest without the others' consent, and the lessee then holds a fractional working interest. In some states a cotenant may even develop over another's objection, accounting for the non-consenting owner's share after costs. Practically, an operator wants all of it — which gives a coordinated group of cotenants more leverage than any of them has alone. Talk to your co-owners before negotiating separately; a family that signs at different times and on different terms leaves money on the table, and the operator knows it.

You hold a non-participating royalty interest. You have no right to lease and no right to bonus, and your income depends entirely on terms someone else negotiates. Two protections: ratification — an operator will frequently ask you to ratify the lease and any pooling, and your signature has value that should be priced; and, in some states, a duty of utmost good faith owed by the executive-rights holder to the non-participating owner, which limits self-dealing in lease terms.

You inherited an interest and cannot find the paperwork. Start with the county records where the land is, then the probate records where the decedent lived. State agencies publish production and operator data; unclaimed property offices hold suspended royalties. An affidavit of heirship and, where necessary, a probate or determination of heirship proceeding are the standard curative tools. Do this while family members are alive to sign.

You are being asked to ratify a pooling or unit designation. Read what it does. Ratification can be worth real money and can also convert a favorable lease position into an unfavorable one. Do not sign because it arrived in the mail with a deadline.

Someone offers to buy your minerals. See the article's discussion — get a second offer, understand exactly what the deed conveys, watch for language sweeping in interests you did not intend to sell, run the tax comparison, and never deposit a check attached to a document you have not read on both sides.

A well is being drilled and you were never leased. Depending on the state, you may be force pooled with a risk penalty, or the operator may be required to obtain your agreement. Find out which regime applies immediately, because the election between participating and being carried has a deadline and is frequently the most consequential financial decision in the matter.

The lease has expired but the operator will not release it. Most states provide a statutory procedure requiring a release of record after termination, with damages or attorney's fees for failure. Send a written demand citing the statute; a stale lease clouds title and prevents you from leasing again.

You own the surface but not the minerals, and drilling is coming. Your rights are the accommodation doctrine, any surface damage statute, and — above all — a negotiated surface use agreement, which you should pursue immediately, before a location is staked. See Step 4.

Step 9 — Reading the lease form line by line

When the form arrives, work through it in this order. The point is not to understand every word; it is to find the six or seven provisions that decide the economics.

Find the granting clause. What substances? What land — is the description right, and does it include acreage you do not own? Does it grant rights beyond production: injection, storage, disposal, water use, seismic?

Find the habendum clause. How long is the primary term? What holds it afterward — "produced," "produced in paying quantities," "capable of producing," or "operations"? The weaker the condition, the longer the operator can hold your land doing very little.

Find the royalty clause. What fraction? Where is the valuation point — "at the well," "at the point of sale," "market value," "amount realized"? Is there any language about deductions? Is there any language about affiliate sales? If the clause is silent on deductions, your state's default rule applies, and you should find out what it is before signing.

Find the pooling clause. How large a unit? Can the operator pool without your consent? Can it amend a unit after formation? Can it create a unit that includes only a sliver of your tract?

Find every savings clause. Shut-in — how much, how often, for how long? Cessation of production — how many days? Continuous operations — how many days between? Force majeure — how broadly defined?

Look for what is missing. Is there a Pugh clause? A retained acreage clause? A depth clause? An audit right? A prompt payment provision? Silence on each of these favors the operator.

Find the warranty clause and strike it.

Find the assignment clause. Can the operator assign freely? Does the assignee assume the obligations? Will you be notified?

Find the surface provisions, and note that a lease that says nothing about the surface leaves you with only the default rules.

Check the addendum. Most negotiated changes arrive as an addendum or exhibit rather than as edits to the printed form. Confirm that the addendum controls in the event of conflict with the printed form, and that the lease says so expressly.

Then read the whole thing once more, out loud. Leases are short, dense, and drafted to be read quickly. Reading aloud catches the sentence that quietly gives away the depth rights.

Step 10 — What the money actually looks like

Landowners consistently overestimate early payments and underestimate the long tail, or the reverse. Here is the shape of it.

Bonus is paid once, on signing or on title approval, per net mineral acre. It is the only certain money in the transaction, and it arrives whether or not a well is ever drilled.

Delay rentals are largely obsolete; most modern leases are "paid-up," meaning the bonus covers the entire primary term and no annual payments are due.

Royalty begins only after a well produces and is sold, which may be years after signing — or never. Then:

Your monthly royalty = (your net mineral acres ÷ total unit acres) × royalty fraction × [gross production value − any authorized deductions] − severance and ad valorem taxes.

The production curve matters enormously. Modern horizontal wells decline steeply: a large fraction of total recovery arrives in the first eighteen to thirty-six months, after which the well produces at a much lower rate for many years. A landowner whose first checks are large should understand that they are the peak, not the baseline.

A realistic illustration. 80 net mineral acres in a 640-acre unit at a 3/16 royalty gives a decimal of 0.0234375. On a well producing $16 million in gross revenue allocated to the unit over its life:

With a gross proceeds clause, the $67,500 line disappears — which is why the deduction language is worth negotiating harder than almost anything else.

And the timing. Perhaps 60% of that arrives in the first three years, with the remainder spread across a decade or more of declining checks. Plan accordingly: this is depleting income, not an annuity. See Estate Planning for Business Owners and consider the tax treatment, including the depletion allowance, with a professional before the first large check arrives rather than after.

Step 11 — Frequently asked questions

"How long do I have to decide?" Almost always longer than you are told. Ask what specifically happens if you respond in three weeks. If the answer is vague, there is no deadline.

"What if I just say no?" Depending on the state and the circumstances, the operator may be able to force pool your interest, in which case you elect between participating in costs and being carried subject to a risk penalty. Find out which regime applies in your state before assuming that refusing costs you nothing — or that it costs you everything.

"Can I lease to someone else later if I say no now?" Yes, and in a developing play, waiting has often paid. But there is no guarantee the offer improves, and an unleased interest earns nothing.

"Do I need my spouse to sign?" In community property states and in states with homestead or dower requirements, frequently yes. The operator's title work will identify it, and a lease signed by only one spouse where both signatures are required is defective.

"The landman says the lease is 'paid up.' What does that mean?" The bonus covers the entire primary term and no annual delay rentals are due. That is standard and fine — it says nothing about the other terms.

"What is a 'memorandum of lease'?" A short recorded instrument identifying the parties, the land, and the term without disclosing the financial terms. Operators use them for confidentiality. It is ordinary, and you should keep the full original.

"They want me to sign a 'lease extension.'" Read it as a new negotiation. An extension of a lease signed years ago at below-market terms extends those terms. Price it as you would a new lease, and consider whether letting it expire and re-leasing is better.

"Can I get out of a lease I already signed?" Rarely, absent fraud, mutual mistake, or a defect. What you can do is hold the operator to it — the primary term will expire, the savings clauses have limits, and a lease not maintained terminates by its own terms. Calendar the dates and watch the production database.

"Is there such a thing as a 'landowner-friendly' form?" Several landowner associations and state extension services publish annotated model leases and clause libraries. They are useful as a checklist. They are not a substitute for a lawyer who knows the state's law on post-production costs, because that single doctrinal question can change the value of the lease by a fifth.

"What does a lawyer cost for this?" For a review and a negotiated addendum, typically a few hours at an hourly rate, or a flat fee. On 240 net mineral acres in an active play, that expenditure returned six figures in the first worked example above. On six acres in a quiet county, it may not be worth it — though even there, a one-hour consultation to strike the warranty and add a Pugh clause is cheap insurance.

Step 12 — Model addendum

Most negotiated changes arrive as an addendum. Here is a skeleton covering the provisions this guide identifies as most valuable. Adapt it with counsel to the state's law and the specific transaction.

ADDENDUM TO OIL AND GAS LEASE dated ______ between ______ ("Lessor") and ______ ("Lessee")

The provisions of this Addendum control over any conflicting provision of the printed lease form.

1. Royalty. Notwithstanding any provision of the printed form, Lessee shall pay Lessor a royalty of [3/16] [1/5] [1/4] of the gross proceeds received by Lessee or any affiliate of Lessee from the sale of oil, gas, casinghead gas, and all other substances produced, free of all costs and expenses, and without deduction, directly or indirectly, for any cost of gathering, compression, dehydration, treating, separation, processing, fractionation, marketing, storage, or transportation, and without deduction for any cost incurred to make the product marketable or to move it to the point of sale. Where any product is sold to an affiliate of Lessee, royalty shall be computed on the price received by such affiliate upon resale to an unaffiliated third party in an arm's-length transaction.

2. Primary Term. The primary term is three (3) years from the date hereof. There is no option to extend.

3. Horizontal Pugh Clause. Upon expiration of the primary term, or upon cessation of continuous drilling operations thereafter, this lease shall terminate as to all lands not then included within a producing unit.

4. Vertical Pugh Clause. Upon expiration of the primary term, this lease shall terminate as to all depths lying more than one hundred (100) feet below the stratigraphic equivalent of the deepest formation from which production has been obtained.

5. Continuous Development. After the primary term, Lessee shall commence a new well within [180] days of completion of the preceding well; failure to do so terminates this lease as to all acreage outside producing units.

6. Shut-In Royalty. Shut-in royalty of $______ per net mineral acre per year may maintain this lease for no more than two (2) consecutive years and four (4) years in the aggregate, and only while a well capable of producing in paying quantities exists on the premises or a unit including them. Lessee shall give Lessor written notice within thirty (30) days of shutting in.

7. Pooling. Lessee may pool the leased premises into units not exceeding [640] acres (gas) or [160] acres (oil), plus a ten percent tolerance. Lessee shall file the unit designation of record and furnish Lessor a copy within thirty (30) days. No unit may be amended, reduced, or reformed without Lessor's written consent. Royalty shall be allocated on a surface acreage basis.

8. No Warranty. This lease is made without warranty of title, express, implied, or statutory, and Lessor's liability is limited to a return of consideration actually received.

9. Payment; Interest; Statements. Royalty shall be paid within [60] days of first sale and monthly thereafter, with interest at [__]% on late payments. Each payment shall be accompanied by a statement showing the property, well, production month, volume, price, Lessor's decimal, gross value, each deduction by category, taxes, and net.

10. Audit. Lessor may audit Lessee's records supporting payments for the preceding four (4) years upon reasonable notice. If an underpayment exceeding [5]% is found, Lessee shall bear the cost of the audit and pay the deficiency with interest.

11. Surface. Lessee shall conduct no operations on the surface of the leased premises except pursuant to a separate written surface use agreement executed by Lessor. In no event shall any well, tank, pit, road, or facility be located within [500] feet of any residence, barn, water well, or pond.

12. Assignment. Lessee shall give Lessor written notice of any assignment within thirty (30) days, and no assignment relieves Lessee of any obligation unless the assignee expressly assumes it in writing.

13. Release. Upon termination of this lease in whole or in part, Lessee shall file a release of record within sixty (60) days and furnish Lessor a copy.

14. Taxes. Lessee shall bear all costs of production; Lessor bears only Lessor's proportionate share of severance and ad valorem taxes on Lessor's royalty.

LESSOR: ____________ LESSEE: ____________ Date: ______

Two notes. First, the sentence in the preamble giving the addendum priority over the printed form is essential — without it, a court reconciling a conflict may not reach the result you intended. Second, an operator will negotiate this document; the version you get back will not be the version you sent, and the differences are the negotiation.

Step 13 — After the lease is signed

Signing is not the end of the landowner's work. Four obligations recur, and each has a deadline that runs quietly.

Watch the primary term. A lease's primary term is a fixed period — commonly three to five years — during which the operator must drill or the lease expires. Most leases extend into a secondary term "so long thereafter as oil or gas is produced in paying quantities." Calendar the primary term expiration the day the lease is signed, and again ninety days before, because that is when a delay rental, an extension option, or a shut-in payment will be tendered and you will want to check whether it was made correctly and on time. A payment tendered a day late or to the wrong party can terminate the lease — which is often exactly what a landowner wants, and almost always what the operator's records will dispute later.

Read the division order carefully, and change what needs changing. After first production the operator sends a division order stating your decimal interest. Its function is to confirm ownership and authorize payment; it is not an amendment to the lease. Historically some division orders included language purporting to change royalty calculation or add deduction authority. Most states now prohibit that by statute, and many supply a statutory form. Verify the decimal against your own title calculation — net mineral acres ÷ unit acres × royalty fraction — and strike any language that alters the lease. Then sign it, because payment is often withheld until it is returned.

Audit the royalty statements. Every check stub should show volume, price, deductions, and your decimal. Compare the price against published index prices for the field, and watch for deductions the lease does not authorize. Most leases and several state statutes give the lessor a right to audit the operator's records; the right is usually time-limited, so a statement that looks wrong should be questioned in writing within the audit window rather than at the end of the year.

Track the surface. Pad location, road placement, water use, and reclamation obligations are the terms most often honored loosely. Photograph the site before construction begins, keep a dated log of what happens, and raise deviations in writing at the time. The surface use provisions in the addendum are worth exactly what the landowner is willing to enforce, and enforcement is far easier with contemporaneous photographs than with a recollection two years later.

And one thing to plan for now: the lease will be assigned. Operators trade acreage constantly, and the company you negotiated with is frequently not the company that drills. That is why the addendum's assignment provision — requiring notice and preserving all obligations against successors — matters more than its careful language suggests, and why a landowner should keep the entire file, correspondence included, indefinitely.

Related documents

• Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights
• Mineral Title and Oil and Gas Lease Review Checklist
• Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights Toolkit
• Easements, Boundary Disputes, and Adverse Possession
• Title Insurance and Curing Title Defects
• Agricultural Law
• Buying, Leasing, and Operating a Farm
• Environmental Liability for Businesses and Property Owners
• Estate Planning for Business Owners
• Probate and Estate Administration

This guide is educational and not legal advice. Oil and gas law is state law and differs materially on lease construction, post-production costs, pooling, and surface damages. Consult counsel experienced in the law of the state where the minerals are located before signing anything.