Family! Grrr!

[gja1000]

Yes, you are funny.

Mineral rights and surface rights did not used to be separate, but after oil/gas was discovered, maybe in the 50's (I'm not sure when) they became separate. Those of us who owned land before they became separate, own both the surface and mineral rights. Now, if you buy land or property, 99% of the time you only buy the surface rights and someone else (perhaps the state, or the original land owner, owns the mineral rights). You can sell your surface rights, but not your mineral rights or visa versa.

The ONLY thing mineral rights mean is that the person owning them has the POSSIBILITY of getting some money from an oil/gas company leasing the mineral rights so they can drill a well and extract the oil/gas. The mineral rights owner (me, Betsi, and Diana) get money from the lease and then IF the company drills a well and IF the well produces, then then the owner of the mineral rights (me Betsi Diana) will get a percentage of the profits from the oil/gas extraction and sale. I know some people who are extraordinarily rich from oil/gas, but most of us have had mineral rights all our lives and have little to nothing to show for it.

Here is some information about mineral and surface rights:

In most countries of the world all mineral resources belong to the government. This includes all valuable rocks, minerals, oil or gas found on or within the Earth. Organizations or individuals in those countries can not legally extract and sell any mineral commodity without first obtaining an authorization from the government.

In the United States and a few other countries, ownership of mineral resources was originally granted to the individuals or organizations that owned the surface. These property owners had both "surface rights" and "mineral rights".

Sometimes an oil/gas company does not want to purchase a property because they are uncertain of the type, amount or quality of minerals that exist there. In these situations the company will lease the mineral rights or a portion of those rights.

A lease is an agreement that gives the mining company the right to enter the property, conduct tests and determine if suitable minerals exist there. To acquire this right the company will pay the property owner an amount of money when the lease is signed (usually about 3 years). This payment reserves the property for the company for a specific duration of time. If the company finds suitable minerals it may proceed to extract them. If the company does not commence production before the lease expires then all rights to the property and the minerals return to the owner.

When minerals are produced from a leased property the owner is usually paid a share of the production income. This money is known as a "royalty payment". The amount of the royalty payment is specified in the lease agreement. It can be a fixed amount per ton of minerals produced or a percentage of the production value.