Is this buyout offer fair?

Compare it with what the interest pays now. Buyers commonly talk about 3 to 5 years of current income for producing minerals. That is a rule of thumb, not a price: a lease that is declining is worth less than that, and undrilled acreage next to new permits can be worth more. Put the offer beside your yearly income, check how many acres it really covers and of what kind, and ask the questions on this page before you answer.

A net mineral acre is one acre of the minerals under the ground that you own. A net royalty acre is a way of counting the royalty on it, and buyers use two counts. On your actual royalty, net royalty acres = net mineral acres × your royalty: at a 1/4 royalty, one net mineral acre is 0.25 net royalty acres. On the common 1/8 convention, net royalty acres = net mineral acres × your royalty ÷ 1/8, which is the same as × 8: one net royalty acre is the royalty of one net mineral acre under a 1/8 lease, so at a 1/4 royalty one net mineral acre is 2 net royalty acres. The same money spread over the two counts gives prices per net royalty acre that differ by a factor of 8, and a letter often does not say which count it uses. Ask the buyer: is your price per net royalty acre on a 1/8 basis or on your actual royalty? Then ask how the number was worked out from your deed or lease.

That is your decision, and there is no deadline in the law that makes you answer a buyer. An unsolicited offer is a starting point: buyers usually leave room to raise it. Before you sign anything, read what you are giving up (all minerals, or only the royalty; the whole tract or one depth; forever or for a term) and whether the price is for what you own now or also for what is drilled later.

Some offers buy only part of what you own: certain depths (say, down to the base of one formation), part of a tract, or only for a number of years. The price should be read against that smaller piece. This tool lists any limit it finds in an uploaded letter with the exact words, and tells you when the letter does not say. If the letter mentions none, ask the buyer to confirm in writing that there are none.

Not by itself. A permit is permission from the Railroad Commission to drill. It is not a well, and it does not mean your acreage is included in it. The page shows the permits issued within a few miles of your abstract in the last 24 months, so you can see whether drilling is active, and it says plainly when it can only show the whole county. It does not show rigs, because the state does not publish a rig count for a location.

In this order, using the first one available: what you type as a typical monthly check; your own statements, when you have uploaded three or more months into your Mineral File; the state's production record for the lease multiplied by your decimal and recent prices. Prices default to the 12-month average of WTI and Henry Hub, and you can change them. Every figure says which of the three it came from.

The mineral rights value tool

No. It is a comparison built from public records and the numbers you give it. It shows a range and the assumptions behind it, never one fair price, and it is not an appraisal.

The headline (the offer as months and years of income), the price per acre and the count of nearby permits are free with no account. Uploading a letter to be read needs a free account, which reads two a month. Membership adds the full report: the value range, how it compares with rule-of-thumb figures, scenarios, the questions to ask, your own statements as the income, and a PDF with a decline or counter-offer letter.

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