Years ago, when I joined the Business Office, I became aware that we were receiving regular checks from some oil companies. When I inquired about it, I learned that in the past we had been bequeathed some mineral rights in North Dakota. I later became aware that we would occasionally get letters from various sources offering to buy our mineral rights for what seemed like quite a lot of money. However, I wasn’t going to sell them until I knew more about what we had.
Last winter I took some time to start looking into what these mineral rights were. These mineral rights were bequeathed to WMPL by three people beginning as far back as 1998; the larger ones came to us in 2013. I started research online and ordered a couple of books on the topic. I also discovered that I could Google the actual wells we received royalties from and see pictures of them on Google Earth. I was getting excited. In further research, I came across a government web site that provided a lot of technical information on individual wells – but that was way over my head!
During this time, I shared what I was learning with my brother Larry, who happens to be a retired geophysicist with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry. Larry became intrigued as well since what I was doing was like a consulting project he had recently completed. Larry told me that generally you don’t sell mineral rights since, in the industry, this is referred to as “free money.”
Larry understood the technical information I was getting from the government web site and over the next few months spent many hours analyzing the information and studying the geology of northwest North Dakota. To conclude his work, he prepared a Powerpoint® presentation, which I shared with the Board at their February meeting. Larry projected that the income from these rights would be very substantial, well beyond what I expected, and that they would produce for decades to come. He advised to be on guard for people who like to take advantage of uninformed mineral rights owners. Furthermore, Larry informed us that there is a possibility that more wells could be drilled, and new technologies could be developed to stimulate the wells as their production declines.
Thank you, Larry, for your hard work. And thank you, Lord, for this gift that keeps on giving.