The Net Royalty Acre Schedule in a Written Offer

A written offer from our desk includes a schedule with one line per tract, so an owner can compare every number to a deed, a lease, or a royalty statement.

Open a mineral offer and look for the part that tells you what the buyer thinks you own. In a short letter that part is often one sentence, or missing. In ours it is a table, and the table is the offer. The price is a consequence of what the schedule says.

The schedule is organized by tract and ends in net royalty acres, where one NRA is a 1/8 royalty on one net mineral acre. The sections below describe the columns, how to test each against your records, and why some offers leave the schedule out.

The Columns, Read Left to Right

Each line begins with the county and a short legal description for the tract, followed by the record owner named on the vesting instrument. Next come the net mineral acres we have credited, the lease royalty fraction, and the resulting NRA, which is net mineral acres times the royalty fraction times eight.

Further columns identify the lease, the unit or wells the tract participates in, and any depth limits or reservations we found. A final group shows our rate per NRA for that line and the line total. The proposal total is the sum of the lines, and nothing is added beyond them.

A tract on which we see producing wells is marked differently from one that is leased but undrilled, and from one that is unleased. The rate for each carries a short basis note, for example the age of the wells or the development activity nearby.

Checking the Schedule Against Your Own Records

Start with the deed. Compare the legal description, the fraction of the minerals shown as yours, and the acreage. Where an inherited share is involved, check the fraction against the probate paperwork as well. Net mineral acres on the schedule should match what the chain of title supports.

Then check the lease, which should show the royalty fraction we used. If you hold only a recorded memorandum, the fraction may be in the full lease at the operator's office. A 3/16 lease on 40 net mineral acres gives 60 NRA, and a 1/4 lease gives 80, so a wrong fraction moves the count by a quarter or more.

Finally, if you receive royalty checks, take your division order decimal, multiply it by the gross unit acres and by eight, and compare the result with the schedule line. A close match is a good sign. A gap is a prompt to call us, because it often traces to an heirship share, an unleased co-owner, or a unit size difference.

Why Vague Offers Skip the Schedule

A single per-acre figure is easy to write and hard to challenge. It avoids stating which royalty the buyer assumed, how many acres were credited, and whether the number applies to every tract or only to the best. An owner who cannot see those inputs cannot tell whether a higher number elsewhere is actually higher.

Some offers leave the schedule out because the buyer has not yet done the title work and is sending a number to start a conversation. Others leave it out because the number would not survive a line-by-line comparison. We cannot say which is which for another buyer. We can say that an offer with no count, no royalty, and no tract list is not yet an offer you can verify.

We are the buyer named on the proposal, so the schedule is the one the deed will describe. If diligence changes a line, we send a revised schedule and mark what changed.

What to Do With the Schedule Before Signing

Share it with your CPA or attorney along with the proposed deed. They can speak to the tax and legal effects of the sale, which we do not advise on, and they may notice a tract, a reservation, or a depth that you want to keep out of the conveyance. If an owner wants to sell only some tracts or some of a fraction, the schedule is the place to say so, and we price the lines that remain.