The Appraisal of Mineral Rights: with emphasis on oil and gas valuation as real property

The Appraisal of Mineral Rights is a meant as a guide to valuing minerals, particularly oil and gas properties, as real property interests. Most valuation books related to mineral rights focus on setting values for industry specialists. Those emphasize the techniques that oil and gas professionals apply when creating documents for SEC filings, or internal valuation related to deciding which prospects to drill. This work is intended for the appraiser, the real estate agent, and the average mineral owner who needs a valuation that can be used for internal estate management, for valuation related to estate or income taxes, or to evaluate an offer made to purchase the mineral right. Such appraisals should conform to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) rather than be an engineering text. Portfolios of mineral rights, working interests, and over-riding royalty interests are intangible business interests. This book explores the passive interest of actual real property. It is the fee in mineral or the leased fee that is explained. The book starts with a brief history of petroleum valuation and the development of the techniques commonly applied to the appraisal of a mineral interest. It breaks down the legal and appraisal terminology into simple explanations. The lease is dissected and each part of lease terminology is explained. Pooling and divisions of interest are explained. The more technical aspects of valuation are reserved for the last half of the book applying the standard appraisal approaches to value in addition to the application of methodologies unique to minerals. The author ends the book with his commentary on the boom – bust cycle of oil exploration and an exploration of the relationship between earthquakes and fracking.