Wyoming spacing orders and DSUs, for mineral owners

If a horizontal well two sections away has started paying you, or a landman has told you your minerals are "in a unit," a spacing order is the reason. It is the single document that decides which tracts share a well's production and in what proportion, and it is public.

What a spacing order does

The WOGCC, on an operator's application, establishes a drilling and spacing unit (DSU): a defined area — a governmental section, a stand-up or lay-down half-section, or a multi-section block for long laterals — that one well or a set of wells is allowed to drain. Everyone who owns minerals inside the unit shares in every well drilled in it, in proportion to their acreage, whether the wellbore crosses their tract or not.

Why your decimal looks the way it does

Your royalty decimal on a unit well is your net mineral acres in the unit ÷ total unit acres × your royalty rate. A 40-acre tract in a 1,280-acre unit at a 3/16 royalty is 40 ÷ 1,280 × 0.1875 = 0.005859. When operators enlarge a unit to accommodate longer laterals, the denominator grows and each owner's decimal shrinks — while the number of wells that pay you usually grows too.

Pooling

Inside a unit, owners who have not leased can be force-pooled by Commission order under Wyoming's conservation statute (W.S. § 30-5-109). A pooled unleased owner is treated as a working-interest owner: they carry their share of costs (recovered out of production, often with a risk penalty) but receive their full share of revenue thereafter. Whether to lease before a pooling hearing or to go unleased is a real decision with real money on both sides; get advice.

How to find the orders that touch your tract

Orders are indexed by docket and by the sections they cover. The practical way in is by section: find every order that names your section, township and range, then read the unit boundary and the wells approved in it. Our map shades every approved unit and lists its wells; click your section and the units that include it appear with the order reference.

What to watch

• Notice. Operators must notify affected owners of spacing and pooling hearings. Mail that looks like junk from a Casper law firm is often exactly this.
• Unit changes. An amended order can move your tract into a different unit or change its size. Your decimal on later wells will differ from the first.
• Wells outside the unit. A lateral that crosses your tract but belongs to a neighbouring unit does not pay you; the spacing order, not the wellbore, decides.