Energy & Critical Minerals · Title
Drillsite, division order, acquisition, and supplemental title opinions for Texas and Oklahoma oil and gas — and brine and geothermal title characterization for the Smackover trend — from an examiner with three decades in the county records.
A title opinion is the document every other decision in an oil, gas, brine, or geothermal project rests on. We issue drillsite, division order, acquisition, and supplemental opinions across Texas — and, for the Smackover trend, the brine and geothermal title characterization opinions that conventional forms were never built to address.
Pre-spud ownership of the leasehold and mineral estate in the drilling unit, lease burdens and obligations, pooling authority, and a prioritized curative list.
Post-production ownership to the decimal, including the calculation of net revenue and royalty interests, suspense recommendations, and pay-deck support.
Buyer-side opinions on the seller's ownership, NRI, defects affecting value, and the interplay with the PSA's defect and special warranty provisions.
Updates to existing opinions for newly recorded instruments, curative completed, or changes in the unit or well status.
Characterization of the right to produce Smackover brine and extract dissolved minerals — surface, groundwater, mineral, and prior brine, salt, sulfur, and geothermal instruments examined together.
Ownership of geothermal energy and associated resources under Natural Resources Code Chapter 141, including reservations recorded before the June 2023 statute and lease authority questions.
Ratifications, stipulations of interest, affidavits of heirship and use, corrective deeds, and requirement tracking to closure.
Portfolio-level title review for mineral, royalty, and working-interest acquisitions, scaled by our document pipeline for speed and consistency.
Our examination process starts with the instruments, not with a form. Abstracts, runsheets, and county records are ingested and indexed by our tooling; every instrument in the chain is abstracted and cross-referenced automatically; and the examiner's time goes where it belongs — on the ownership calls, the ambiguous conveyances, the "other minerals" language, and the curative strategy. The result is an opinion that reads like one written by a senior examiner, because it was, at a fixed price and a defined turnaround.
Rand Marsh, who leads the title practice, has three decades of Texas title examination behind him and is a member of the American Association of Professional Landmen — he has worked the courthouse side of these questions as well as the examiner's desk.
The lithium-brine build-out in Northeast Texas has exposed a gap in conventional title practice: an operator's drillsite opinion says nothing about who owns the dissolved minerals in the brine, and a brine lease from the wrong estate is a problem no amount of curative can fix later. We issue brine mineral title opinions that address the question directly, and we structure lease programs — often with instruments from both the surface and mineral estates — that keep a project bankable whatever the Legislature or the courts eventually decide.
Three questions recur in these chains, and we address each on its own footing:
A drillsite (or drilling) title opinion is issued before a well is drilled and tells the operator who owns the leasehold and mineral interests in the drilling unit, what the lease burdens are, and what must be cured before spudding. A division order title opinion is issued after production is established and sets out, to the decimal, who is entitled to be paid — it is the basis for the division orders and the pay deck. An acquisition title opinion is issued for a buyer diligencing a purchase and focuses on the seller's ownership, net revenue interest, and defects that affect value. Supplemental opinions update any of the three when new instruments are recorded.
For a typical Texas drillsite opinion on a described unit with abstracts or runsheets in hand, we quote a fixed fee and a delivery date after reviewing the materials — usually days, not weeks, because our tooling handles the abstracting and instrument-indexing work that used to consume most of an examiner's hours. Complex chains, large units, and brine or geothermal characterization questions take longer and are priced accordingly. You will have the number before we start.
Yes, and it is a distinct product. A brine mineral title opinion traces the surface, groundwater, and mineral estates and prior brine, salt, sulfur, and geothermal instruments to reach a supportable conclusion about which estate holds the brine minerals on the tract. A geothermal opinion applies Natural Resources Code Chapter 141 and any reservations recorded before the June 2023 statute. More on lithium and brine.
Yes. Most engagements include a curative program: identifying the requirements that actually matter to the operation, preparing ratifications, stipulations, affidavits, and corrective instruments, and tracking the requirements to closure. Rand Marsh's landman background is useful here — he has run curative on the ground, not just written the requirements.
Texas and Oklahoma. Texas title opinions are the core of the practice; Oklahoma opinions are issued under Rand Marsh's Oklahoma license. For Utah and other states we coordinate with local title counsel.