What Is a Mineral Ownership Report (MOR)?

Runsheet vs. MOR vs. attorney's opinion on title

Operators, mineral buyers, and estate representatives use three different documents depending on the stage of a project and the level of legal assurance required:

What a complete MOR package contains

When a landman prepares a Mineral Ownership Report off the county index, the package is organized so that an operator, buyer, or reviewing attorney can trace every decimal back to the recorded instrument that created it:

• Tract header and scope statement: The exact legal description (survey, abstract, section, block, and gross acreage), the county and state, the starting point of the search (sovereign patent or a specified prior deed), and the effective certification date and time of the county clerk's index.
• Surface ownership table: Current record owner(s) of the surface estate, their undivided fractional interest, net surface acres, and the vesting deed reference.
• Mineral ownership table: Each record mineral owner, their undivided fractional and 8-decimal mineral interest ($\text{MI}$), their net mineral acres ($\text{NMA} = \text{Gross Acres} \times \text{MI}$), the vesting instrument(s), and whether the interest is leased or unleased.
• Non-participating royalty (NPRI) and executive rights schedule: Any severed royalty or executive interest burdening the tract, noting whether the NPRI is fixed or floating and which mineral shares bear the burden.
• Leasehold and working interest schedule: Active oil and gas leases (lessor, lessee, recording reference, primary term, royalty rate, pooling/Pugh summary), subsequent assignments of working interest (WI) and overriding royalty interest (ORRI), and net revenue interest (NRI) reconciliation.
• Encumbrances and curative notes: Unreleased deeds of trust, abstracts of judgment, tax liens, lis pendens notices, and chain defects keyed to the instruments in the runsheet.

How mineral, NPRI, and leasehold decimals reconcile

Every ownership table on an MOR must sum to unity ($1.00000000$ or $100\%$) across the tract so that no interest is double-counted or omitted:

• Mineral interest reconciliation: The sum of all undivided mineral interests across all mineral owners must equal $1.00000000$, and the sum of all net mineral acres must equal the tract's gross acreage.
• NPRI burden allocation: Under Texas law, a pre-existing NPRI burdens the mineral interest(s) out of which it was carved unless a later deed shifts the burden. On an MOR, the mineral owner holds the executive right and the right to lease bonus, while the NPRI reduces the net royalty payable to that mineral owner under an oil and gas lease.
• Unit tract participation: When the tract is pooled into a drilling or production unit, the owner's unit decimal is their tract royalty decimal multiplied by the tract participation factor ($\text{Tract Acres in Unit} \div \text{Total Unit Acres}$).

How unprobated estates and deed ambiguities are noted

A county chain rarely runs from patent to present without a gap or an ambiguous reservation. Rather than guessing how a court would rule, a well-built runsheet and MOR flag the issue directly on the affected interest:

• Deceased record owner without local probate: The report shows title in the "Estate / Heirs of [Decedent]" (or credits the heirs named in a recorded Affidavit of Heirship as "of record by AOH") and notes whether probate or an affidavit under Tex. Est. Code § 203.001 is needed. See Curative Index No. 01.
• Duhig overconveyance or double-fraction reservation: Where a warranty deed reserves a fraction without accounting for a prior reservation (Duhig rule) or uses two different fractions in the same clause (fixed vs. floating NPRI), the report cites the instrument language verbatim and flags the competing readings for the examiner.

Sources

1. Tex. Prop. Code chs. 11 and 13 (Recording and Notice). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.13.htm#13.001
   Effect of recorded instruments and county clerk indexes. Opened October 13, 2026.
2. Tex. Loc. Gov't Code ch. 193 (§§ 193.003, 193.008, 193.009). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.193.htm#193.003
   Grantor-grantee cross-indexes and official public records classification. Opened October 13, 2026.
3. Altman v. Blake, 712 S.W.2d 117 (Tex. 1986).
   The five essential attributes of a severed mineral estate in Texas. Referenced October 13, 2026.
4. Tex. Occ. Code § 954.001 et seq. (Land Services Exception to Practice of Law). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/OC/htm/OC.954.htm
   Defines petroleum and mineral land services and distinguishes landman research from the practice of law. Opened October 13, 2026.