Sell Mineral Rights in Michigan

Three things Michigan mineral owners usually don't know until it's too late: how old your production really is, who's still buying, and why one offer isn't a fair test of value.

Michigan's mineral story is almost entirely about the Antrim shale, a shallow gas formation across the northern lower peninsula, Otsego, Antrim, Kalkaska, Montmorency, and a wide swath of surrounding counties, developed heavily through the 1990s using dewatering techniques rather than the fracturing that defines newer shale plays. It was one of the earlier successful shale gas plays in the country, which also means most of the drilling happened decades ago, and the wells producing today are mostly legacy, not new.

That's not a bad thing for you as an owner. Antrim wells are known for slow, long decline once past their initial dewatering phase, which means plenty of interests here are still generating steady, modest royalty checks on wells drilled in the Clinton administration. The problem is that because it's an old, quiet play, most owners have never had a reason to think hard about what that steady interest is actually worth, until one buyer calls and they take the number at face value.

Thing one: your production is probably older than you think

If your royalty checks trace back to Antrim shale gas, there's a good chance the well itself was drilled sometime in the 1990s boom, meaning it's already decades into its production life. That's actually useful information for a buyer, because a well with that much history has a long, well-documented decline curve on file with Michigan's oil and gas regulator, making it easier to model accurately than a newer, less-proven well.

Pull that production history yourself before comparing offers. It's public record, and it's the single best tool you have for knowing if a number is fair.

Thing two: fewer buyers actively market Michigan than you'd expect

Because the Antrim boom is well behind us and Michigan doesn't have an active modern shale play driving new interest, a lot of national mineral buyers simply don't bother building a Michigan-specific team. That thins the buyer pool, which cuts both ways, less competition finding you, but also less risk of a chaotic bidding environment. The practical upshot is that you often have to be the one who goes and finds a second buyer, rather than waiting for competing offers to show up in the mail.

Thing three: one offer tells you nothing about fair value

This is true everywhere, but it matters more in a quiet market like Michigan's, where owners are less used to shopping offers around simply because they don't get many. A single number, no matter how confidently it's presented, is not a market. It's one company's guess about how much they think they can get away with paying. The only way to know if it's fair is to put a second buyer's number next to it.

Heirship and old lease terms worth double-checking

A lot of Antrim-era leases were signed in a tight window during the 1990s boom, often by a single landowner whose interest has since passed down to multiple heirs. If you're one of several siblings or cousins holding a fractional share of an original family lease, confirm your exact decimal interest against the operator's current division order before you compare any offer, since a buyer quoting a flat number without referencing your specific share isn't quoting you anything real.

It's also worth checking whether the original lease has been held by production this whole time or whether there's been a lapse, since that affects who currently has the legal right to produce, and by extension, what your interest is actually tied to today.