How do I check whether a mineral rights buyer is legitimate?

Search the grantee index at the county clerk or recorder for the county where your minerals are located, using the company name on the letterhead. A buyer that purchases and holds minerals records deeds in its own name, so there will be a trail of recorded instruments. Then ask in writing whether they are buying for their own account or finding a third party purchaser, who pays any commission, whether the offer letter number is the number on the closing check, and what circumstances would change it. Finally, get a second valuation from an independent source.

What is the difference between a mineral buyer, a mineral broker, and a mineral marketplace?

A direct buyer purchases the interest for its own account with its own capital and pays no commission because there is no middleman. A broker lists the interest, finds a purchaser, and is paid a commission out of the proceeds. A marketplace or auction exposes the interest to multiple bidders and is typically compensated out of the transaction, sometimes through the buyer's closing agent, which still comes out of the deal economics. None is inherently better; they are different products, and an owner should establish which one they are dealing with before signing anything.

I got an unsolicited letter offering to buy my mineral rights. Is it a scam?

Unsolicited mineral offer letters are normal and usually come from real companies. Buyers find owners through public records: mineral ownership is recorded at the county courthouse and production, spacing, and pooling filings are public at each state's oil and gas regulator. The number in such a letter is generally an opening figure based only on what public records show, which is usually less than the owner knows, so supplying actual net acres, royalty rate, and recent check amounts often moves it. The things worth verifying are whether the company records deeds in its own name in your county, whether the offer letter number is the closing number, and whether any commission is being paid.

Should I get a second offer on my mineral rights?

Yes. Mineral interests have no public price list, so a single number gives an owner no reference point. A second independent valuation with the reasoning shown, including which wells were valued, what decline assumption was used, how many remaining drilling locations were counted, and what multiple was applied, allows a real comparison. Any buyer who discourages shopping an offer is signaling something. This is equally true of buyers who publish directories like this one.

Mineral Rights Buyers: Who They Are and How to Check Them

Name: Berlin Royalties
Address: Tulsa, OK, 74101, US
Telephone: 918-984-1645

Why we built this

Berlin Royalties buys minerals. So do most of the companies below. We are not a neutral party and we are not going to pretend to be one, which is exactly why this directory contains only facts you can check for yourself: what each company calls itself, where it says it is located, whether it holds a Better Business Bureau profile, whether it publishes its fees, and whether it names the people who work there.

What you will not find here is our opinion of anyone's pricing, honesty, or conduct. We would not want a competitor publishing theirs about us, and an owner trying to evaluate an offer is not helped by a buyer running down the other buyers. The useful thing is the method, and the method is further down this page.

Three categories get mixed together constantly in this business, and telling them apart is the single most useful distinction an owner can learn.

A direct buyer purchases the interest for its own account with its own money. There is no commission because there is no middleman. Whether the price is fair is a separate question.
A broker lists your interest and finds a purchaser, and is paid a commission out of the proceeds. That commission can be worth paying if the competitive process produces a higher number than you would get otherwise.
A marketplace or auction exposes your interest to multiple bidders and is typically paid out of the transaction, sometimes by the buyer's side, which still comes out of the deal economics.

None of the three is inherently better. They are different products, and we cover the tradeoffs honestly on broker, marketplace, or direct sale. What matters is knowing which one you are actually dealing with, and a surprising number of companies are harder to categorize than you would expect.

Companies, at a glance

Sorted alphabetically. Every entry links to a full page with sources. Compiled August 2026.

Founding years and BBB details are abbreviated here. Each company's page carries the full statement, the conflicts between sources where they exist, and the links.

Company	Based	Describes itself as	Founded	BBB
Berlin Royalties (us)	Tulsa, OK	Direct buyer, holds rather than flips	2014	No profile
Blue Mesa Minerals	Plano, Texas	Direct buyer	Not stated on its site. BBB	Not accredited. Rating A+. Man
Buckhead Energy	Fort Worth, Texas	Direct buyer	2007 per its own site; BBB r	Accredited since August 14, 20
Caldera Royalty	Dallas, Texas	Direct buyer	Not stated on its site. BBB	Not accredited. Rating A minus
Flat River Minerals	Sheridan, Wyoming	Direct buyer	2019 per its homepage. The A	No profile found
Gateway Royalty	Carrollton, Ohio	Direct buyer	2012, consistent between its	Accredited since November 28,
Legacy Royalties	Tyler, Texas	Direct buyer	1994, consistent between its	Not accredited. Rating A+. Fil
Paint Rock Royalty	Fort Worth, Texas	Describes itself both ways, see below	2016, per its homepage.	No profile found
Pheasant Energy	Fort Worth, Texas	Direct buyer	Founded 2014 by Ryan C. Moor	Not accredited. Rating A+. Fil
Royalty Clearinghouse	Austin, Texas	Direct buyer	1999, consistent between its	Accredited since November 9, 2
Texas Royalty Brokers	Houston, Texas	Broker	2012, per its About page. BB	Not accredited. No rating; BBB
US Mineral Exchange	Tulsa, Oklahoma	Marketplace	2012, consistent between its	Not accredited. Rating A+. Fil
Venergy Momentum	Texas. Three different cities appear across sources.	Consulting and services, and both buys and sells	Not stated on its site, whic	Accredited since July 28, 2023

How to check any mineral buyer in about ten minutes

This works on every company in the table, including us. If you do only one of these, do the first.

1. Look them up in your county's records

This is the test almost nobody runs and it tells you more than everything else combined. A company that buys minerals and keeps them records a deed in its own name in the county where your minerals sit. Search the grantee index at that county clerk's or recorder's office for the company's name. Many counties are searchable online, free.

If a company has genuinely been buying in your area for years, there will be a trail of recorded instruments. If there is nothing at all under the name on the letterhead, that is worth a direct question: are you buying this yourself, and in what name will the deed be recorded?

Ours are recorded under Berlin Resources LLC, our legal entity, in 47 of Oklahoma's 77 counties and across eight other states. Go look.

2. Establish whether they are buying or brokering

Ask in writing: Are you purchasing this for your own account, or finding a third party purchaser? If a commission is paid to anyone in this transaction, who pays it and how much is it?

Every legitimate company in either category will answer that plainly. Note that a commission paid by "the buyer's closing agent" still comes out of the deal.

3. Make them show the arithmetic

Ask which wells they valued, what decline assumption they used, how many remaining locations they counted and at what probability, and what multiple they applied and why. This is not an unreasonable request; it is a paragraph of work for anyone who actually did the analysis.

The reason it matters: in a stacked play like the Powder River or the DJ Basin, a number derived only from your current check systematically undervalues undrilled inventory. You cannot detect that without seeing the work.

4. Ask the closing question before you sign anything

Ask: Is the number in your offer letter the number on the check at closing? Under what circumstances would it change, and will you show me the document if it does?

Most of the genuinely bad experiences owners report in this industry come from an offer that shrinks at closing over unspecified title issues. Get the answer in writing before you sign a purchase agreement.

5. Ask them when you should not sell

Every honest buyer has situations where they would tell an owner to keep the minerals: active permitting on the section, a young well still in early decline, income the family actually depends on, a step up in basis that has not been established yet. A buyer who cannot name one is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.

Ours is a whole page: when not to sell. It has cost us deals, deliberately.

6. Get a second number

Always. Any buyer who discourages you from shopping an offer has told you something important. We say that knowing it cuts against us at least as often as it cuts for us.

Sites that rank in these searches but do not buy anything

Three things show up constantly when owners research this and are worth identifying, because they are not buyers:

The Mineral Rights Forum is a discussion board where owners talk to each other. It publishes no owning entity, address, or named operator that we could verify, and it also runs a directory of mineral service professionals. The discussions are frequently useful; the anonymity of the ownership is worth knowing about.
LandSearch is a listings marketplace with a mineral rights category. We could not locate a legal entity, address, founding year, named team, or BBB profile for it. That is an absence of published information, not a judgment about the company.
The Valor buyer directory at onevalor.com lists several hundred companies and is a genuinely useful reference. It is operated by Valor Mineral Management, LLC of Fort Worth. Worth knowing as a matter of public record: Valor's published address and named chief executive match those on the Better Business Bureau profile of Buckhead Energy, LLC, which is itself listed in that directory. Both companies state this information publicly. We draw no conclusion from it and neither should you without looking yourself. The directory also mixes direct buyers with brokers, marketplaces, publicly traded royalty companies, and at least one company that is not in oil and gas at all, so it is a starting point rather than a vetted list.

Have an offer from one of these companies?

Send us the letter and a recent check stub. We will value the interest independently, show you the reasoning, and give you our own number. If their number is better than ours, we will say so and you should take it. If we think you should not sell at all, we will say that instead. Free, no obligation, and we will not add you to a mailing list.

Get a Second Number Ask a Landman

Compiled August 2026 from publicly available sources. Every fact on every company page links to where we got it. Companies change addresses, accreditations, ownership, and business models, and public records lag reality. Verify anything that matters to your decision at the source. Berlin Royalties competes with the companies in this directory; nothing here is a recommendation for or against doing business with any of them, and nothing here is legal or financial advice. If you work at one of these companies and something here is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at 918-984-1645 and we will correct it.

Who is actually writing to you?