Sell Mineral Rights in Michigan

The Antrim shale in northern Michigan was one of the earliest large coalbed methane plays in the country, and by now nearly everything we see out of this state is riding a very long, very well-understood decline tail.

Antrim development, concentrated in counties like Otsego, Antrim, and Montmorency in the northern Lower Peninsula, largely happened in the 1980s and 1990s, well before shale gas became a household term. These wells dewatered and stabilized decades ago, which means a Michigan royalty check today has none of the volatility of a newer play and almost none of the guesswork either.

Because so much time has passed since the original drilling, most of the interests we're offered here have already changed hands at least once through inheritance, and the ownership fraction on any given well is often split across more heirs than it was originally deeded to.

Why a forty-year-old CBM well still pays reliably

Antrim wells finished dewatering long ago and have settled into a gentle, predictable decline that's about as close to a known quantity as this business gets. We can pull decades of production history on most Antrim units, which means underwriting isn't a matter of projecting an uncertain curve forward, it's mostly confirming that the well is still behaving the way its long history says it should.

Where we pay close attention is gathering system and processing costs, since some older Antrim infrastructure has required operator investment to keep running economically, and that cost can flow through to a royalty owner's net check even when gross production hasn't changed much.

Fractionated ownership after decades of inheritance

It's common for an original 1980s Antrim lease to now be split among a dozen or more heirs, each holding a small fraction of the original interest. We're used to working with fractional owners and don't require you to consolidate the whole family's interest before we can make an offer on your piece specifically.

What we do need is a clear paper trail showing how your fraction was determined, whether through a will, an affidavit of heirship, or a prior division order that already reflects your share. If that trail has gaps, we'll tell you exactly what a title company will want to see.

How we price a mature Michigan interest

Since there's essentially no new Antrim drilling to speak of, we're not pricing in any growth premium here, we're pricing the reliability of a long, flat, well-documented tail against current gas pricing. That reliability has real value, and a stable forty-year producing history is, in its own way, a lower-risk asset than a newer well with less track record.

Michigan checks tend to be modest in size given how fractionated most interests have become, but the underwriting itself is often faster than in states with murkier production histories.

What a Michigan division order actually tells us today

Because so many Antrim units were formed decades ago, some division orders in circulation still reflect an ownership structure from before one or more rounds of inheritance, and the decimal interest listed does not always match who is legally entitled to payment today. We compare the division order against whatever probate, will, or affidavit of heirship documentation an owner can provide, since the goal is confirming exactly who holds what before any purchase can close cleanly.

Where an operator has already updated its own records to reflect a more recent transfer, that usually speeds things up, since it means the chain of ownership has already been vetted once by someone with a strong incentive to get it right before cutting a check.

Why we do not treat every Antrim tract identically

Even within a single county, individual Antrim wells can show meaningfully different remaining rates depending on how the original completion was done and how the gathering system serving that specific well has held up over the decades. We pull well-level data rather than relying on a county-wide reputation for the play, since two neighboring wells drilled in the same year can be at different points on their respective curves by now, and pricing them the same would shortchange one owner or overpay the other.