MRP 288: Our Favorite Tools for Managing your Minerals in 2025

In this episode, we share our favorite tools and resources for managing mineral rights and royalties effectively. As we have discussed in the past, there are four key phases to getting a handle on your minerals: knowing what you own, understanding different types of oil and gas interests, locating your property and researching activity, and determining value. Mineral and royalty management is a step-by-step journey where different tools become relevant at different times so we talk about the essential tools that we recommend for each step in your mineral management journey.

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Key Takeaways and Tools

Starting Your Journey: Know What You Own

The foundation of mineral rights management begins with understanding exactly what interests you’ve inherited or own. Genealogical research often plays a crucial role in this discovery process. Many mineral owners have used Ancestry.com for tracing family history and identifying potential mineral-bearing properties that may have been passed down through generations. This research helps uncover not just known properties but potentially unknown interests (places where ancestors lived) that family members may have owned.

County courthouse records form the backbone of property research. Many counties now offer online portals where you can search for deeds, assignments, and other legal documents by name or legal description. Texas counties are particularly well-developed in this area, though availability varies significantly by location. For more comprehensive research, third-party services like Courthouse Direct, OKCountyRecords.com, Texas File, or Enverus DI Courthouse provide enhanced search capabilities and can export results into organized run sheets that document the chain of title.

When county records aren’t digitized or accessible online, hiring a professional landman becomes valuable. These experts can physically visit courthouses to research records and typically charge around $600 per day. A basic title search on a straightforward property might cost around $3,000 and provide you with professional documentation of your ownership interests.

Understanding Your Interest Type

Learning about different types of oil and gas interests is crucial because it affects both the value and permanence of your ownership. For example, in some cases mineral rights are more valuable than overriding royalty interests because they’re perpetual, while overriding royalty interests tied to specific leases may expire when those leases end.

If you would like a step-by-step overview of the different types of oil and gas interests, the important documents you should have for your interests, how to perform a title search, and how to locate your property on your state oil and gas commission website to understand current activity, be sure to check out my Mineral Management Basics online course. Every month you wait to properly manage your mineral rights could mean missed opportunities and lost income. Make 2025 the year you invest in the knowledge to take control of your minerals & royalties!

Locating Property and Monitoring Activity

Once you understand what you own, the next step involves locating your property on maps and monitoring oil and gas activity in the area. Understanding legal descriptions is essential for this process, and the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office website provides original survey plats that help decipher complex property descriptions involving lots and irregular parcels.

For monitoring ongoing activity, WellDatabase.com offers both free and premium plans that allow you to view production data and basic well information across the entire country. This tool is particularly valuable for owners with interests in multiple states. Energy Link’s Mineral IQ platform provides free basic monitoring for properties where you’re already receiving royalties, and paid plans for more detailed analysis. Or take the management of your interests to the next level with more advanced automated revenue tracking, visualization, and analysis tools with a professional platform like MineralWare.

State Oil and Gas Commission websites remain the authoritative source for official data (see list below for links to how-to videos for major oil & gas producing states), and many offer excellent mapping and well information services. Setting up Google alerts for your specific area can also help you stay informed about industry developments and potential changes in activity.

Determining Property Value

Understanding what your mineral rights are worth involves both current production value and future development potential. For established producing wells over three to five years old, a rough rule of thumb suggests multiplying average monthly cash flow by 48 to 60 times to estimate the value of producing reserves. However, this method doesn’t account for undeveloped potential, which often represents the majority of value in active drilling areas.

Professional valuations or appraisals provide the most accurate valuations and are essential when making significant decisions about selling or for legal and tax purposes. For less formal estimates, you can research comparable sales through online marketplaces like EnergyNet and US Mineral Exchange, or examine county records in states like Oklahoma where documentary stamp fees may reveal actual sale prices in some cases.

Professional Support and Ongoing Management

As your mineral interests become more complex, professional support becomes increasingly important. CPAs with oil and gas experience can help maximize tax benefits through proper depletion deductions and expense categorization. Many mineral owners pay more taxes than necessary because their accountants aren’t familiar with industry-specific deductions.

Oil and gas attorneys prove invaluable for ownership transfers, estate planning, and setting up trusts or LLCs. When selecting professionals, specifically ask about their oil and gas experience, as not all CPAs and attorneys are equally knowledgeable in this specialized area.

For ongoing management, accounting software like Wave or QuickBooks helps track income and expenses, while specialized tools like Pop’s Royalty Software offer desktop-based solutions for those preferring not to store data in the cloud.

Additional Resources and Final Tips

The American Association of Professional Landmen provides a directory for finding qualified landmen in specific areas, with designations like RPL (Registered Professional Landman) and CPL (Certified Professional Landman) indicating adherence to professional standards.

Don’t forget to check out the Missing Money website, which allows you to search for unclaimed property (or royalty payments) across all states. Former mineral owners often have unclaimed royalty payments that were escheated to state governments when checks couldn’t be delivered.

Just remember that your mineral rights journey will unfold in phases, and the most important step is simply getting started rather than trying to master everything before beginning your research. Each discovery leads to new questions and the need for specific tools, making this a natural learning process that develops over time.

Additional Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Mineral Rights Education

Valuing Mineral Rights

Matt’s company, Silverheels Investments & Consulting provides mineral rights consulting and advisory services. We perform mineral valuations and appraisals and a myriad of other consulting services to meet the needs of mineral owners large and small. If you would like to understand what your mineral rights and royalties are worth, please contact Matt today for a free consultation.
MRP 84: The Top 6 Things That Affect The Value of Mineral Rights and Royalties
MRP 194: How Do You Calculate Mineral Rights Value?

Mineral Rights Research

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Disclaimer: This episode and accompanying show notes provide general information about managing your mineral rights & royalty interests. This information should not be construed as legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult with qualified legal and financial professionals.

We may be affiliates for some of these products. Affiliate links may be used for each tool that we are an affiliate of, which means that if you click that link and subsequently make a purchase, we will earn a commission. You pay nothing extra; any commission we earn comes at no additional cost to you. In other cases, companies may be current or past sponsors of the show (none of the companies are current sponsors as of the date of this episode’s release). Please understand that our recommendations are based on deep experience with and knowledge of these companies. We recommend them to mineral and royalty owners like you because they are genuinely helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we receive if you choose to buy something. Please do not spend any money on these products or services unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.

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