# Sell Alaska Mineral Rights | Berlin Royalties > Sell Alaska mineral rights and royalties to a veteran-owned buyer that shows the valuation math. Fair offers, all closing costs paid, free valuation. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/alaska/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. Where We Buy ยท Alaska ## Sell your Alaska mineral rights and royalties. Private mineral interests are rare in Alaska, and rare deserves a serious buyer. [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) or call or text [918-984-1645](tel:9189841645) Most Alaska minerals belong to the state, the federal government, or Native corporations, which makes the private and inherited interests that do exist unusual, and unusually hard to get valued. If you hold an overriding royalty, a carved-out interest, or inherited acreage tied to Cook Inlet or the North Slope, we will actually do the work on it. Whatever you own, producing royalties, non-producing acreage, or an inherited fraction, we will identify it from whatever paperwork exists, value it off the actual wells and activity, and show you the reasoning with the offer. Free, no obligation, and if keeping it is the right answer, we will say so. ## Start here: most Alaska "mineral rights" are not mineral rights Alaska is the hardest state in the country to own minerals in, and the reason is a single sentence Congress wrote in 1958. **Section 6(i) of the Alaska Statehood Act** requires that every sale, grant, deed or patent of land the State received "shall be subject to and contain a reservation to the State of all of the minerals." It is not a policy the State chose and could change. Any land conveyed contrary to that section is **forfeited to the United States**. Alaska cannot create private minerals even if it wanted to. The State then wrote that command into **AS 38.05.125**, which is unusual in a useful way: it does not describe the reservation, it sets out the exact deed clause in quotation marks. Every state conveyance recites it. In *City of Kenai v. Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska, LLC*, 373 P.3d 473 (Alaska 2016), the Alaska Supreme Court held that even subsurface pore space falls inside that reservation, and put the principle plainly: **"A patent cannot convey what has been reserved by law."** The result, per the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, is that land in private ownership other than Native corporation land is **"less than one percent"** of Alaska. Most of even that one percent is surface only. ## The four-question triage Before anyone values anything, answer these in order. **Who patented the land, and when?** - **Conveyed by the State of Alaska**, at any time. Almost certainly **no minerals**, by operation of AS 38.05.125. - **Conveyed by the United States after 1958.** Minerals are generally reserved. Check the patent. - **Patented by the United States before statehood**, especially a homestead, townsite or trade and manufacturing site on the **Kenai Peninsula or in the Matanuska-Susitna valley**. This is the real candidate, and it is where the private minerals that do exist came from. - **A Native allotment.** Under 43 U.S.C. 1634, allotments reinstated under that section reserve **all interests in oil, gas and coal to the United States**, and the original 1906 act covered only land classified as non-mineral. An inherited allotment usually is not an oil and gas interest. ## Where private minerals actually are Cook Inlet. BLM's own descriptions of the five Southcentral units it administers, **Swanson River, Kenai, Beluga River, Beaver Creek and Birch Hill**, list each as containing a mix of "Federal, State, CIRI, and **Fee** leases." Fee means privately owned minerals. Those units date from 1956 to 1967, before or right at statehood, which is the mechanism: federal patents issued during the Kenai homesteading era could and sometimes did convey the full mineral estate, and interests severed from those patents are still out there. Hilcorp Alaska operates all five today. The North Slope is different. Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk, Alpine, Willow, Pikka and Point Thomson sit on State of Alaska leases, federal acreage, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation subsurface. There is essentially **no individual private fee mineral ownership** there. If you hold something tied to the North Slope, it is far more likely an **override carved out of a lease** than a mineral interest, and overrides are real, valuable and saleable. ## How to search Alaska records, because it is not like anywhere else The mental model from Oklahoma or Texas fails here. Alaska has **no counties**, and its boroughs do not record deeds. - Recording is a **State function**. The DNR State Recorder's Office runs **34 recording districts** out of just **two physical offices**, Anchorage and Fairbanks. - Recording district boundaries are **not** borough boundaries. They descend from historic judicial and mining districts, with names like Chitina, Manley Hot Springs and Nulato that match no present-day government. - The Recorder's **MTRS search**, by meridian, township, range and section, is the closest thing Alaska has to a tract index, and it is the tool to use. - **The critical limitation:** the online grantor and grantee index runs from **1970 to the present only**. Anything earlier means the historic books. For a pre-statehood Kenai patent, which is exactly the period that matters, expect to work with the office directly or hire help. - For the original federal patent, use the **BLM General Land Office Records** site at glorecords.blm.gov. That document is what tells you whether minerals were reserved or conveyed, and it is the decisive piece of paper. For Cook Inlet questions, the districts that matter are Kenai, Homer, Seldovia, Anchorage and Palmer. ## The honest word on the market We could not find evidence of an active market for Alaska mineral and royalty interests, and that is not surprising. There is almost no inventory, the State legally cannot create more, Native corporation subsurface is institutionally held and its stock cannot be sold, the North Slope has no private fee position to buy, and the private minerals that do exist sit in a mature declining gas basin serving a local utility. On top of that, diligence costs more in Alaska than the interests are usually worth. So if you own something here, the realistic buyers are the operator on the acreage, an adjacent working interest owner, or a local party, rather than a national mineral fund. **Get the title question answered before you spend money on a valuation**, because the most likely outcome is that there is nothing to sell. We will do that first part for free, and we will tell you plainly if the answer is no. Formations & Plays ## What produces here ### North Slope Prudhoe Bay and the giants around it, plus a new generation of development west of the legacy fields. ### Cook Inlet The state's original producing basin, still supplying south-central Alaska. Counties ## Where we're most active North Slope Borough Kenai Peninsula Anchorage area interests We review every Alaska inquiry and buy beyond the counties listed. Send what you have. ### The Alaska mineral owner's guide Everything a Alaska owner needs in one place: who owns what under state law, how royalties must be paid and by when, what a buyer can and cannot deduct, the tax treatment of a sale, and the deadlines that quietly cost people their minerals. Free, and no sign-up. [Read the Alaska guide](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/alaska/) Questions ## Straight answers for Alaska owners Do private mineral rights even exist in Alaska? They exist, but they are genuinely rare. Alaska is federally forbidden from conveying minerals: Section 6(i) of the 1958 Statehood Act requires every state conveyance to reserve all minerals, on pain of the land being forfeited back to the United States. So private minerals in Alaska essentially all trace to federal patents issued before statehood, concentrated on the Kenai Peninsula and around Cook Inlet, plus overrides carved out of leases. How do I tell whether I own the minerals or only the surface? Read the granting instrument. Alaska Statute 38.05.125 does not describe the mineral reservation, it prescribes the exact deed language in quotation marks, so a state patent recites it almost word for word. If your deed contains that reservation clause, you own surface only. If the land was patented by the United States before 1958, pull the original patent from the BLM General Land Office records site and see whether minerals were reserved. Is my Permanent Fund dividend a royalty on Alaska oil? No, and this is the single most common misunderstanding we hear. Royalties fund the principal of the Permanent Fund. The dividend is paid out of the earnings reserve, meaning investment returns on a global stock and bond portfolio, and it is paid on the basis of residency rather than property ownership. Everyone eligible receives the same amount. A newborn qualifies and a non-resident who owns Alaska minerals does not. Receiving a dividend tells you nothing about whether you own minerals, and it cannot be sold or assigned. I inherited shares in a Native corporation. Is that a mineral interest? No. Under ANCSA the twelve regional corporations hold the subsurface estate and village corporations hold the surface, but what a shareholder owns is stock in a corporation, not a severed mineral or royalty interest. Under 43 U.S.C. 1606(h)(1)(B) Settlement Common Stock generally cannot be sold, pledged, or otherwise alienated. It is real and it can be valuable, but it is not something a mineral buyer can purchase. Can you value an ORRI on a North Slope lease? Yes. Overrides price off the underlying wells and the life of the lease, and we will show you the work. Be aware that the North Slope is almost entirely State of Alaska leases, federal acreage, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation subsurface, so an interest there is far more likely to be an override carved from a lease than a fee mineral interest. What if my interest turns out to be worthless? Then we will tell you that plainly and you will have lost nothing. With Alaska in particular, the most likely honest answer is that there is no mineral interest to sell, and we would rather you learn that from us for free than pay someone to find out. ## Before you sign anything in Alaska The things owners here most often wish they had read first. All free, none of it gated. - [How mineral rights are valued](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-value/), including the rule of thumb people quote and why it is usually wrong - [Selling mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-mineral-rights/) and [selling oil and gas royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-oil-and-gas-royalties/), with the real process and timeline - [The Pugh clause](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/pugh-clause/), the single most valuable sentence you can negotiate into a lease - [What a farm out is](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/farmout-agreements/), and why your operator suddenly changed - [The rule of capture](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/rule-of-capture/), and why a neighbor's well can legally drain your minerals - [Non-participating royalty interests](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/non-participating-royalty-interest/), if your deed carved one out - [Executive rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/executive-rights/), if somebody else signs the lease that binds your minerals - [Surface owner rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/surface-owner-rights/), if you own the ground and someone else owns what is under it - [Questions to ask a buyer](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/questions-to-ask/) and [what happens if you want out after signing](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/can-i-back-out-of-a-mineral-rights-sale/) Free Valuation ## Find out what your Alaska minerals are worth. Free, no obligation, and no pressure. We reply within one business day, usually faster. Prefer the phone? Call or text [918-984-1645](tel:9189841645) and you will get Stephen, the owner, not a call center. If we miss you, we text back the same day. Your Name Phone Number Email Address Where are your minerals located? OklahomaTexasNew MexicoLouisiana ArkansasKansasNorth DakotaMontana WyomingColoradoUtahCalifornia West VirginiaOhioPennsylvaniaKentucky MichiganMississippiAlabamaAlaska Sand/Gravel/AggregateOther / Not sure County (if known) Interest type Select an option Minerals and Royalties Working Interest Overriding Royalty Interest An Entity (LLC, Partnership, Trust) Not Sure Are you currently receiving royalty checks? Select an option Yes No I Used To But They Stopped Not Sure Have you received offers for your minerals before? Select an option Yes No What best describes your situation? Select an option I'm ready to sell now I'm exploring my options I'm just curious what they're worth Anything else? (optional) Get My Free Valuation No cost, no obligation, and we never share your information.