There are three types of plats most commonly used by a division order analyst in their work. These are the lease plat, proposed-drill plat, and the as-drilled plat.
The lease plat usually is attached to either the lease purchase report (LPR) or the mineral ownership report (MOR), or both. These typically are created by the field broker who runs title and takes the lease from the mineral owner. The analyst uses this plat as a reference tool when working with the other two types of plats.
The proposed-drill plat is created by a licensed surveyor and is included in filing an application for permit to drill a well. A well-constructed proposed-drill plat will have the signature and seal of the surveyor at the bottom of the plat. The legal name of the proposed well and its legal description location are also found at the bottom of the plat in a separate block. This plat should state its purpose, such as “Proposed” in the name block.
A propose-drill map should contain a legend box giving a list of tracts and their acreages if there are separate tracts within the boundary of the drill site, or a pooled unit is being formed. This plat will show the proposed location of the wellbore, from surface hold location to well terminus location. There should be a legend box giving the definitions of all initials used in the plat. This plat rarely, if ever, should be used by the analyst to calculate production revenue share decimals to create the first-sales division of interest (DOI). Instead, the analyst should use the as-drilled plat once it is created. The proposed-drill plat and corresponding as-drilled plat are known to differ substantially sue to meandering of the wellbore during drilling, and the as-drilled plat always prevails.
Another difference between the proposed-drill and as-drilled plats is the true, final lateral length of the wellbore once drilled. A new legend will appear in the as-drilled plat, a wellbore summary stating actual wellbore distances.
Another new legend box should also appear in the as-drilled plat, this one identifying only those tracts traversed by the wellbore, and the feet of wellbore running through each tract. This legend will be labeled something like “Production Percentage Summary”. This information is critical for calculating fixed NPRIs (explained in the February , 2022 blog, “Common DOI Management Issues: Interest Types”) and unleased interests entitled to revenue after 100% payout in Texas and Louisiana horizontal wells, and perhaps other states also.
If the horizontal well is an unpooled cross-unit well in Texas, or crosses two or more force-pooled units in Louisiana or Oklahoma, the as-drilled plat will include a special legend stating how many feet of the lateral lies inside each stand-alone, contiguous tract and unit. This information is required to correctly reduce proportionately the production revenue decimal for each owner in the pooled units or non-pooled tracts containing part of the lateral.
Next week’s blog will be “Declaration of Pooled Unit (DPU): Important Components.”
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