If you’re drilling horizontal wells, or buying minerals or non-op in New Mexico, you’re not choosing whether to participate in the compulsory pooling process—you’re just choosing how well-prepared you’ll be when it happens.
We call it a shotgun wedding for a reason: one way or another, you’re getting hitched to every other interest in the unit. And if you don’t understand the compulsory pooling process, you could end up stuck in any number of bad outcomes, such as an unleased mineral interest subjected to a 200%+ risk penalty or losing the right to operate a prospect that is now included in another operator’s horizontal spacing unit.
We’ve broken the entire process down in plain terms from beginning to end. I hope you find it useful.
Download New Mexico Shotgun Wedding: A Practical Guide to Compulsory Pooling
