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Oil and Natural Gas Leases

New oil and gas developments in Kentucky have brought leasing activities to regions of the Commonwealth not previously experienced in these negotiations. This page has links to resources to aid mineral and royalty owners in understanding leasing issues. Not all of these sites have Kentucky-specific information. Be aware that sections of a lease that are legal in one state are not necessarily legal in another.

• MineralWeb, a basic information site with lots of data. Start by reviewing the Oil & Gas 101 info and then items in their "popular topics" menu on the right.
• Oil and Gas Help, see especially the items accessed in the Royalty Owner Resources drop down menu
• Clauses and forms from the Landmen.net web site. This site provides text for the typical, boiler plate, language for a selection of the most common provisions that can appear in leases. There is a lot of other information available here, just click on the Resources link in the menu
• Checklist for negotiating and oil and gas lease
• Penn State College of Ag Sciences. This site is focused on Pennsylvania and Marcellus.
  • Natural gas leases
• Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale Lease Guide [Wayback Machine]
• Real Estate Center of Texas A&M, Negotiating an Oil and Gas Lease
• North Dakota State, North Dakota Oil and Gas Leasing Considerations
• Royalty owner's associations
  • NARO is the National Association of Royalty Owners, a non-profit that represents royalty owner interests. They have an Appalachian Chapter. They have a bookstore. If you join NARO, they send you a copy of the book by Look Before You Lease by Stafford.
  • West Virginia Royalty Owners Association
  • West Virginia Surface Owners' Rights Organization Minerals/Royalty Owner Info
  • Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association
• Lease forms:
  • University of Texas
  • Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley
  • Texas sample oil and gas lease and surface use agreement
• USLegal online dictionary (site contains advertisements)
• Kentucky
  • Kentucky Revised Statutes, KRS 353, the main oil and gas statute
  • Kentucky Administrative Regulations, 805 KAR 1, Division of Oil and Gas regulations
  • Kentucky Division of Oil and Gas
    • Kentucky Oil and Gas Well Operator's Manual (2012)
    • Kentucky Oil and Gas Regulatory Modernization Act (2015) The provisions of this act become effective June 24, 2015 and will be incorporated into a new version of the Oil and Gas Well Operator's Manual.