I assume someone else operates it, it's family land and they've been pumping for decades upon decades. It's also an operating ranch and we used to go down there and camp and shoot and stuff.
As for the lease, I have no idea how it operates, but he makes between hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars every time they decide to start pumping, so he's fine with whatever deal he's got.
He's actually a Methodist minister, he was my youth pastor way back in the day. He's fine with or without the money, but he certainly doesn't mind it when they decide to give him millions of dollars.
Yep, there are lot of lucky folks like that. I think I mentioned here a while back about an elderly lady in Robertson County who I had to deliver a royalties check to one time (that's not standard procedure at all, but there was some kind of problem depositing into her bank). It was for one month's royalties, and it was for just over $1 mil. I had met her before a few times on other business, so I was familiar with her vibe. I was just shaking my head, trying to imagine passively making that much money in a month. She, on the other hand, was just out in her chicken coop gathering eggs and doing other country-person chores at her old, modest house. I figured she probably used that check as a bookmark and forgot about it.
There are others for whom it's never enough. No matter how much they were making to do nothing other than lease their land, they were up in arms about everything, especially when their wells weren't producing and not making them gobs of money that month. Those people were inclined to let you hear about it.
Like I could do anything about it anyway.
Hypothetical conversation:
Me: Hello, this call is to inform you that one of your lessors, Billy-Joe Jim-Bob, is unhappy that you've capped the well on his property and would like you to put it back into production.
Exxon: Who are you? And also, don't care, f*** off, kid.
