Where mineral records live, state by state
Mineral title in the West is spread across three places: the county, which records private deeds and leases; the state, which regulates wells and leases its own minerals; and the federal government, which owns the minerals under a great deal of western land. Here is where to look in each of our six states.
| State | Counties | Who records | How documents are cited | Wells and spacing | State minerals | Federal minerals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Mexico | 33 | County clerk | Book and page, or a reception or document number, depending on the county and era | Oil Conservation Division | State Land Office | BLM New Mexico State Office |
| Colorado | 64 | County clerk and recorder | Reception number; book and page on older records | Energy and Carbon Management Commission (formerly the COGCC) | State Land Board | BLM Colorado State Office |
| Utah | 29 | County recorder | Entry number, with book and page | Division of Oil, Gas and Mining | Trust Lands Administration | BLM Utah State Office |
| Wyoming | 23 | County clerk | Reception number; books kept in several series | Oil and Gas Conservation Commission | Office of State Lands and Investments | BLM Wyoming State Office |
| Kansas | 105 | Register of deeds | Book and page | Kansas Corporation Commission; well records at the Kansas Geological Survey | Few | BLM New Mexico State Office |
| North Dakota | 53 | County recorder | Document number, with book and page on older records | Industrial Commission, Oil and Gas Division | Department of Trust Lands | BLM Montana-Dakotas State Office |
The county: private deeds and leases
Every deed, lease, assignment and release between private parties is recorded in the county where the land lies. Most counties keep a grantor-grantee index (by name), and many keep a tract index (by legal description). The tract index is the faster road to a complete runsheet; the name index is how you fill the gaps.
Always take the numbers from the recording stamp on the document. Indexes are written by hand or typed from the stamp, and a transposed digit in the index is one of the most common title errors.
The state: wells, pooling and state-owned minerals
Each state's oil and gas commission holds well files, spacing and pooling orders. Pooling and spacing orders often list the owners an operator found, which is a useful check on your own chain. States also own and lease minerals of their own, mostly from the school sections granted at statehood, through the land offices in the table.
The federal government: split estates
Across the West, the United States kept the minerals under many homestead patents while the surface went to the homesteader. Federal leases are issued by the Bureau of Land Management and can be searched in its Mineral and Land Records System (MLRS); the original patents are in BLM's General Land Office records. Kansas is handled by BLM's New Mexico State Office, and North Dakota by its Montana-Dakotas State Office.
Putting it together
A complete mineral runsheet starts at the federal patent, follows every recorded instrument at the county, and checks the state's well and pooling records for anything the county missed. That's the work we do, at a fixed price.