Got an Unsolicited Offer?

A letter offering to buy your minerals showed up out of nowhere, and the number on it might be fair, low, or somewhere in between, and there's no way to know without checking it against something.

If you own Permian Basin minerals or royalty, you've probably gotten one of these letters, sometimes several a year from different companies, each offering a specific dollar figure to buy your interest, often with some urgency baked into the language. We've seen these letters from the buyer's side of the business, and we can tell you plainly: some are fair offers, some are lowball numbers hoping you don't check, and there's no way to tell which is which just by reading the letter itself.

You're under no obligation to respond quickly, or at all, and the single best thing you can do before signing anything is get a second read on what the offer actually represents against your interest's real production. We've reviewed plenty of these letters for owners who called us confused about the terms, and more than once the number turned out to be reasonable, which is exactly why a second opinion is worth getting either way rather than assuming the worst about every offer that shows up unsolicited.

Why the same interest gets wildly different offers

Mailbox offers are often generated from public records and general county-level data, without the buyer having pulled your actual recent statements. That means the number can be based on assumptions about your specific well's decline rate, working interest, and net revenue interest that may not match reality at all, sometimes overestimating, sometimes underestimating what your interest is really producing.

A buyer working off your actual statements, rather than county-average assumptions, is going to land on a more accurate number, which is exactly why it's worth sharing your recent statements with more than one potential buyer before deciding anything.

Some letters are actually lease offers rather than purchase offers, seeking to lease your minerals rather than buy them outright, which is a completely different transaction with different implications for your long-term ownership. Read the letter carefully to understand which one you're actually looking at before responding.

Red flags worth watching for

Be cautious of language pushing you to sign and return quickly, deadlines that expire in days rather than weeks, or an offer that arrives with a check already attached that becomes binding once cashed. None of these tactics are illegal, but they're designed to get you to act before you've compared the offer against anything else.

Also worth checking: does the letter clearly state whether they're offering to buy the mineral rights outright or just lease them, and whether the number quoted is per net mineral acre or some other basis. Vague language here is a sign to slow down, not speed up.

How to actually benchmark an offer

Pull your recent statements, and if you can, the well name and API number off them. Share those with a second buyer, whether that's us or someone else, and ask for a straight comparison against the number you already received. You're not obligated to accept either offer, and getting a second opinion costs you nothing but a little time.

If the second number comes back close to the original offer, that's useful confirmation the first one was fair. If it comes back meaningfully higher, you've just saved yourself real money by not signing the first thing that showed up in the mail.