Mineral Owners Like . . . Who?
By Jacob Wilson
It's easy to pigeonhole people. You see an asset, an investment, a shiny toy, and you can pretty quickly guess the social strata they're in. The assets we hold and the way we invest, of course, flow from who we are, right? One of the things I enjoy most about what we do at Maevlo is seeing how exactly opposite the case is in our line of business. Owning minerals tells very little about who you are and what the rest of your life is like. We talk to a lot of mineral owners and sellers, every day, and what keeps life so interesting for us is just how different they all are.
The thing about minerals is you don't pick them up at the dealer, they're not all along spectacular coastlines, they don't have shiny paint and loud engines. They're sitting underground wherever they happen to be. Under corn fields, suburban neighborhoods, and remote forested hillsides. Ever since the fracking (often called 'shale') revolution, they aren't sitting underneath a well bore in your backyard. The place where they drilled is likely miles from your house or property. Since your mineral rights go from your property line straight down to the center of the Earth, that means that all the oil and gas they collect from beneath your property is yours. But what mineral owners have in common, ends about there. How the title to your acreage of mineral rights ended up buried in your filing cabinet is as unique a story as your life and family story is. That's what we love most about talking to mineral owners: every acre has a story.
Every Acre Has a Story
Underground assets don't care much about social status or bank account numbers; they are where they are. When oil and gas are discovered and produced, it is the good fortune of those sitting on top of it. This means that a mineral owner can be a farming family who has passed down a 500-acre ranch for generations, or a single mom who just scraped together enough for a downpayment on a ¼ acre lot with a bungalow on it. It could be a business owner who has run an auto body shop on a one-acre parcel at the edge of town for the past 30 years. Sometimes it is a bunch of cousins who live in different states and have all inherited a 1/8th of grandpappy's mineral rights from the land that was sold when he passed away a few years ago, each cousin making their way and living their life. Some are owned by big companies who put together big chunks of money early on in the shale boom and bought large parcels of mineral rights. (You have read in our previous blog about how mineral rights and land ownership can be sold separately, right?) Indeed every acre has a story and we love hearing them.
The Stories Pass On
Just as the people who own mineral royalties are as different as can be, so also are the reasons for selling, or not selling for that matter. When we speak to owners, we get a view into folks' lives. It's an honor for us. Our initial conversations with mineral owners vary widely. Sometimes we're reaching out to people who don't even know they own mineral rights, while other times we hear from experienced sellers looking to liquidate assets. And we encounter every scenario in between.
Since mineral rights can be passed on in fractions, the sheer number of mineral owners out there is mind-boggling. Hundreds of different people can own a share in one well. So connecting with folks who are interested in selling is no small task! We do a lot of research into the regions, wells, and operators we are interested in investing in and go through all sorts of channels to find the contact details of folks who may be interested. When we reach out we've got a real sense of who we might be talking to but the person who picks up the phone or gets the mailer from us, often there is a good dose of healthy skepticism. Often mineral owners get treated like meat with a target painted on their backs.
At Maevlo, we firmly reject the transactional approach many mineral buyers take. We're committed to building genuine relationships with mineral owners, ensuring they feel respected and receive a fair deal if they choose to sell. We achieve this by asking thoughtful questions and actively listening to their stories. We want to understand how they acquired their mineral rights, what role these rights have played in their lives, and how selling might impact their future. This approach has earned us the trust and openness of many mineral owners.
Most people who are interested in selling are looking to translate that steady but dwindling monthly income into a larger chunk of capital for those important moments of life that require it. Down payments on a home, college education, a new car. We talk to folks who are in life transition moments, a loved one has passed away and the property has recently passed to the next generation.
A Story From the Road
I'll just share one story from a recent conversation we had with an owner, we'll call her Dolly. Through researching assets in a particular area where we knew there was active well development going on, we came across her. We sent a letter introducing ourselves and she called wanting to learn more. She needed help. There was a lot of apprehension there. Her husband had recently died, and she was getting letters from an attorney informing her in confusing legalese about the operator's intention to drill. Dolly had no idea what she owned or what the letters meant. The fact that we wanted to hear her story was an avenue for her to get some help to make sense of what was going on. So we tracked down the parcels and the ownership records to get a handle on what she had. Along the way, we discovered that her son's name was the same as my son's. These connection points matter a lot to us. We don't know if she'll end up selling or if she does that it will be to us, but we do know that she's better equipped to steward her resources and we've connected with the story of a real person.
Family, Life, Investing
Stories of our land are parts of the stories of our lives. Listening to them and caring about them is what it means to have family, life, and investing at the heart of what we do. If you've got some time, give us a call, we'd love to hear yours.
