Louisiana is the only state where you can lose your minerals simply because nobody drilled for ten years. It is not a technicality and it has no equivalent anywhere else.
This is the whole guide, on one page, free, with nothing gated. It covers what you own, the Louisiana law that decides what lands in your bank account, whether your minerals can be taken from you, what happens if a well is drilled and you are not leased, what you owe when you sell, and the questions worth asking any buyer including us.
Almost every confusing thing in oil and gas comes from the fact that the mineral estate is not one thing. It is a bundle of five rights that can be split apart and sold separately:
A mineral interest is all five. A non-participating royalty interest is only the fifth, with no say in leasing and no share of bonus. An overriding royalty interest is carved out of a particular lease and dies when that lease dies. A working interest takes revenue net of costs and, unlike all of the above, can lose you money.
Which one you hold changes the value, the tax treatment, and who has to sign what. Start here: NPRIs, overriding royalties, and the glossary.
**Not for an unleased owner**, and this was settled recently in the owner's favor. In *Self v. BPX Operating Co.*, 2023-CQ-01242 (La. June 28, 2024), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that negotiorum gestio does not apply to a unit operator selling an unleased mineral owner's share, so the operator cannot deduct post production costs from an unleased owner. If you are leased, the lease governs.
Your first move if the deductions look wrong is a written demand by certified mail, keeping the receipt, because the certification is what starts the clock. Our free letter templates have the wording and the statement decoder explains every line on the stub.
No statutory deadline; the lease governs, with 30 days to cure after written notice. There is no fixed interest rate, but **willful nonpayment can mean double royalties, interest, attorney fees, and dissolution of the lease**. The statutes are **La. R.S. 31:137 to 31:140**.
| Minimum payment rule | No statutory threshold located. |
| Time limit to sue over an underpayment | 3 years for royalty underpayment, the shortest of any state where we buy |
A stopped check very often is not a stopped well. The usual causes are a balance under the minimum threshold, a title change putting the interest in suspense, an unprobated death in the chain, an address the payor could not deliver to, or a change of payor after an acquisition. That money does not disappear; it sits in suspense and eventually goes to state unclaimed property. See unclaimed royalties.
**This is the headline.** Louisiana does not recognize a perpetual severed mineral estate. What you own is a **mineral servitude**, and under **La. R.S. 31:27** a mineral servitude is extinguished by **prescription of nonuse after ten years**. When it prescribes, the minerals revert to the landowner. Drilling operations or production interrupt prescription and restart the clock.
Yes, through the Commissioner of Conservation. Under **La. R.S. 30:10** as amended in 2022, the risk charge is **200 percent** of the owner's allocated share of costs for unit wells, substitute unit wells and cross unit wells, and 100 percent for alternate unit wells and subsequent operations. The drilling owner must send a risk charge notice by registered mail.
The reason any of this exists is the rule of capture: a well on the tract next to yours can legally drain oil and gas from under your land, and you cannot sue anyone for it. Pooling is what converts being drained into having a share. The expensive mistake is almost never the pooling itself. It is missing the election deadline, which turns a real choice into a default nobody picked.
Severance tax. Oil and condensate is 12.5 percent of value for wells completed before July 1, 2025 and 6.5 percent for wells completed on or after that date. Incapable oil is 6.25 percent and stripper oil 3.125 percent. Gas is taxed volumetrically at a rate reset each July.
When you sell. Louisiana taxes nonresidents on Louisiana source income. Louisiana uses parishes rather than counties, and its civil law system means terminology throughout your documents differs from the rest of the country.
See taxes when you sell mineral rights, and if you inherited the interest, understand the stepped-up basis before you sell anything: your basis is generally the value at the date of death, not what your grandparents paid, which frequently means far less taxable gain than owners expect.
Louisiana succession is a civil law proceeding and differs meaningfully from common law probate. Forced heirship rules can also apply.
The single most common thing we see is an interest still sitting in the name of someone who died twenty or forty years ago. It is fixable, it is cheaper to fix than to leave, and we pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. See inherited mineral rights, selling before probate is done, and transferring inherited minerals.
Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Office of Conservation, for well records, and the Clerk of Court in each of 64 parishes for land records.
Our well records by state page links every state's free public search, and our operator directory covers more than 38,000 operators with contact information refreshed weekly.
Producing royalties are priced off cash flow and decline. Non-producing minerals are priced off location and activity. Almost every offer you receive is built the same way: take your last twelve months of royalty income and apply a multiple.
That method has one predictable failure, and it is worth understanding because it is where most owners lose money. It assigns a value of zero to anything that has not happened yet. A permit next door. An undrilled bench under your section. A refrac on an old wellbore. A unit being formed. None of that is in last year's income, so none of it is in the offer.
Ask any buyer, including us, to show you their remaining location count and the reasoning behind it. If they will not break it out, they are pricing your check rather than your minerals. See how mineral rights are valued.
You are welcome to use every one of these on us. That is the point of publishing them.
A check stub, an old deed, a division order, a pooling order, or just the county. We will identify the interest, value it with the arithmetic shown, and tell you honestly if you should keep it. Free, no obligation, and no mailing list.
Get a Free Valuation Ask a LandmanLast reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and case law change, and where Louisiana law is genuinely unsettled we have said so rather than filling the gap. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this guide is general information rather than advice about your interest. For a dispute worth real money, hire a lawyer in Louisiana.