re: Louisiana mineral rights agreement discussion thread

quote:

---

I think my biggest concern is can we even negotiate mineral rights if they don't have ownership of them now anyway. And does the previous owner come into play?

---

I am an oil and gas attorney but have very limited experience with Louisiana oil and gas law. You're really going to need to talk to a Louisiana attorney on this one, but I'll give my thoughts.

On the one hand, reversionary interests or remainderman interests are conveyable (for instance, in Texas, the Grantor of a conveyance of minerals for "a term of 10 years and as long thereafter..." would be free to transfer those reversionary rights).

But as I understand mineral ownership in Louisiana, it isn't so much a "term interest" in the usual sense, and if you were allowed to separate the reversionary rights it would defeat the entire purpose of the prescription statute in the first place. The current owner's interest in the minerals is fully tied to surface ownership, and it sounds like what the owner is attempting to do would result in the minerals being severed from the surface for 20 years, which is clearly not allowed by the statute. The owner seems to be operating under the assumption that he owns a reversionary interest distinct from his surface ownership, but I don't think that's correct.