Mineral Rights Leasing

The mineral, oil, and mining industry is aggressively progressing. It's not just the U.S. The increasing importance of the energy and mining industry is becoming very evident worldwide. The growth of developing countries such as China and India further shows us that valuable commodities like oil, steel, and gold are in great demand and becoming very scarce.

With the demand increasing and the resources dropping, every energy/mining company in the U.S. is actively looking for property holdings that hold such valuable commodities.

Mineral rights refer to the legal rights to explore for and produce the resources below the surface. Ownership of mineral rights gives the right to extract valuable commodities such as gold, silver, uranium, copper, nickel, palladium, aluminum, iron, lead, molybdenum, platinum, tungsten, zinc, and diamonds.

In the United States, the most common and most important uses of mineral rights include the rights to energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, and geothermal energy.

Mineral rights are separate from surface rights. Surface rights are the legal rights to work on the surface of the land, and only pertain to ownership on the surface. It is easy to separate mineral rights and surface rights. In fact, many mineral right owners retained their mineral rights long after their surface rights were sold. Once retained, mineral rights can be owned forever (except in Louisiana where "prescriptions" dictate that retained mineral rights only last 10 years once the surface has been sold).

The United States of America is the only country in the world that has granted the rights to own minerals to private parties. This Law has led to wonderful prosperity in the United States. It is estimated that over 1 million private land owners in America have royalty interests on their property today! Often, mineral rights are divided many times with each owner owning only a fraction of the interest in said property.

A mineral rights lease is a formal agreement between two or more parties where the owner of the land grants another party the right to drill or mine and produce commodities such as oil and gold. In exchange, the property owner gets an up front bonus payment, payment for surface damages(if applicable), and a royalty for every product sold. In order for your property to be leased, the energy/mining company must get signatures from each owner on the title.

Most states have laws and regulations pertaining to mineral rights ownership, transactions, and extraction. There are laws and regulations that emphasizes the limitations of a mining company's actions during extraction, for example. These laws are put down to help protect the environment and the parties involved. Both the mineral rights owner and the surface rights owner should be aware of these laws to avoid future problems and disagreements. To make matter clearer for both parties, lawyers and legal assistance should be present.

Obviously, mineral rights and mineral rights transactions are a very complex situation. They require a lot of research, a lot of counsel, and a lot of effort, time, and money. The most important thing to remember is to always ask about the rights and seek legal assistance.