FAQs

Once title has been “cleared” and a producing well has been drilled, a division order authorizing the sale of production from the well is sent to all royalty and working interest owners for their signatures.  The division order sets forth the decimal interest of production owned by each party, their addresses, and a legal description of the property on which the well is located. A tax identification number or Social Security number is also required on the form in order to avoid a backup withholding deduction of 28% as provided under the IRS regulations which may make an address correction on the division order. The owner’s signature on the form will allow us to make the address change on our records prior to making a royalty payment. Attached to the division order may be an Exhibit A showing the breakdown of tract in unit, the interest of the party and the calculations determining the decimal interest.

The division order is not a legal document; it does not need to be notarized. Think of the division order as a courtesy notice, notifying you that we have drilled and are receiving production on land that you own mineral interest in or that you live on. By signing the division order you agree to the decimal interest and everything we have on the order as current.

No, once we receive your information in the system there is no need to fill out another W-9 unless there are changes in ownership.

An oil and gas lease is a written agreement in which a mineral owner (the “lessor”) allows another person or company (the “lessee”) to explore for, drill and produce oil or gas on specified lands for a certain period of time in exchange for the payment or royalties. The lease provides a legal description of the property, the amount of royalty to be paid (typically expressed as a fraction, e.g., 1/8 or one-eighth).

Royalties are the mineral owner’s share of production sold as reserves in an oil and gas lease. The royalty amount is usually expressed as a fraction of the total amount of hydrocarbons produced and sold from the leased premises.

Before obtaining an oil and gas lease, drilling a well, or making payments under a division order, the person or company determines who owns title to the surface, mineral, and royalty and working interests in the land. Title is typically determined by a title opinion, which an attorney’s written legal opinion is based upon an examination of the real property records in the county where the land is located. The opinion often requires that curative instruments be obtained before the property interest is purchased, drilled on, or revenue payments are made.

When it comes to requirements the owner will need to speak to the division order analyst who handles that area or well. Always recommend that the owner consult an attorney practicing in the respective state in which the property is located.

A spacing unit is an area allotted to a well by regulations or field rules issued by a governmental authority having jurisdiction for the drilling over the drilling and production of a well.

First you need to know the spacing unit, as Chord has many different sizes of spacing units. For our example, the spacing unit is 1280 acres, which comprises two sections of land.

EXAMPLE:
You own 20 acres in Tract 1 and you have leased that acreage at a 1/8th royalty.
The total acreage in the unit = 1280 acres.
The calculation would be as follows:
20/1280= .015625 your ownership in the unit x your 1/8th royalty (or .125) = the decimal on the division order.

Chord assigns each of its interest owners a unique owner number for internal identification purposes. Please include your owner number when communicating or corresponding with Chord. The owner number can be located on your check, as well as on your division order on the right side inside the bold box found on page four.

WI. Working Interest: The exclusive right granted to the lessee to explore for and to produce and own the oil and gas located under the lands covered by the oil and gas lease.  The working interest owners bear all costs of exploration, development and operation. These owners should receive a copy of the current Division Order Title Opinion.

RI. Royalty Interest: Lessor’s share of production as set forth in the oil and gas lease.

ORRI. Overriding Royalty Interest: A percentage share of production or the value derived from production, which is free of all costs of drilling and producing and is created by the lessee or working interest owner and paid by the lessee or working interest owner. Usually, the term of an ORRI is for the life of the oil and gas lease.

Of course royalty owners may go to Electronic Funds that can be directly deposited into their account. At that time the revenue owner will have to obtain deposit details from the energylink.com website. You will be asked your owner number and will have to make a username and password. The Direct Deposit form can be found on the Owner’s page.

Please provide Chord with a written request to change your name. Your request should include your old name as it appears in our records, your new name, and a court certified copy of the marriage certificate, divorce decree, or court ordered name change.

You must file a deed, assignment, or other instrument conveying title in the interest to you and your spouse in the real property records of the county in which the interest is located. You must then provide Chord with a certified copy of the instrument to add your spouse to your account. When in doubt concerning this matter, please consult your attorney.

If the owner died with a Will (testate) and Probate proceedings have been or will be conducted in the state where the property is located, please provide the following:

• Certified copy of Death Certificate
• Order Issuing Letters Testamentary
• Order Admitting Will to Probate
• Final decree, Judgment or Personal Representative Deed distributing the estate

If the owner died with a Will (testate) and Probate proceedings are conducted in a state other than the state where the property is located, please provide the following:

• Certified copy of Death Certificate
• Documentation of ancillary probate proceeding opened in all affected
• Final Decree, Judgment or Personal Representative’s Deed distributing the estate

If the owner died without a Will (intestate), please provide the following:

• Certified copy of Death Certificate
• If an owner died intestate please contact an attorney in the state in which the property is located to determine requirements for settling the estate and transferring the owners interest

ALL DOCUMENTS AFFECTING CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP MUST BE FILED OF RECORD IN THE COUNTY WHERE THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED.

You should provide Chord’s Division Order Department with a recorded copy of the deed, assignment, or other instrument of conveyance properly recorded in the county in which the property is located.

You should provide Chord’s Division Order Department with a recorded copy of the deed, assignment or other instrument of conveyance properly recorded in the county in which the property is located.

You should provide the Division department with a copy of that portion of the trust instrument that identifies the successor trustee, its duties and powers, and the circumstances leading to the trustee’s replacement. You should also provide us with the successor trustee’s address. You should also record an affidavit of successor trustee in the county where the well/s is/are located.

For your protection, payments may be suspended in the event of uncertainty as to ownership caused by a title dispute, assignment of interest, notice of death, transfer or sale of property, or unknown address.  You may be able to prevent such an inconvenience by promptly notifying Chord of any change regarding your interest, as discussed above.

Chord strives to disburse revenues in accordance with each owner’s oil and gas lease and all statues and regulations of the state in which the interest is located. In the event of an error or discrepancy in your payment, we will make the appropriate correction and an adjustment to your payment may result. For instance, we may receive adjusted production figures or adjusted pricing from a purchaser. An adjustment to your royalty payment might then be required to ensure that accurate payment is made. Each state has a statute of limitations that governs how far back in the past a company is obligated to make such payment adjustments. Please remember that adjustments may sometimes be in the royalty owner’s favor.

Revenue owners will get a Form 1099 from Oasis Petroleum North America and Whiting Oil and Gas, which are subsidiaries of Chord Energy Corporation. You will not get a Form 1099 from Chord Energy Corporation if you only receive oil and gas revenue. If you get revenue from both Oasis Petroleum North America and Whiting Oil and Gas operated wells, you will receive two Form 1099’s, one for each entity.

Chord Energy prints checks on the last business day of the month.  The checks included on this year’s 1099-Misc would be checks with a check date in the same 1099 year. The minimum threshold for reporting from a Form 1099-Misc is ten dollars and the threshold for 1099-NEC is six hundred dollars. If you did not reach the minimum threshold then you would not get a Form 1099 from Chord. 

The amount reported on the Form 1099 represents all gross and deducts to net paid royalties and rents for the previous calendar year. Outstanding checks that were issued in the year but not cashed will still be reflected in the current years 1099.

IRS guidelines require that Chord Energy reflects all payments be included in the Form 1099. If a check was mailed out but not cashed, it will still be reflected in the Form 1099. If you request that it be voided and reissued in same year, we will not correct/amend the previous tax reporting year’s Form 1099 information but will ensure that the reissued amount is not reported in the current reporting tax periods 1099 form. Chord Energy will not reissue Form 1099’s based on the failure to let us know to void and reissue check. We will only do so in exceptional circumstances where it was a result of a Chord accounting issue.

Form 1099s will be mailed via the United States Postal Service on or before January 31st each year for the preceding calendar year.  Please allow fifteen (15) business days for the form to arrive in your mailbox. If it does not make it during this time, you can request a 1099 form through our website form linked here.

Yes, you will get a Form 1099 for each corporation you receive revenue from. If you only receive revenue from one of the corporations then you will only receive one Form 1099.

Chord will not provide a copy of every revenue statement sent out for the year. Please use Energy Link, the FIS website, or the physical statements you received throughout the year.

We are required by the IRS to report the gross amount on your 1099-Misc and 1099-NEC.  All the information to get the net (check) amount is provided on the 1099-Misc & 1099-NEC.

Per IRS reporting guidance, effective 2020 reporting Tax Year non-employee compensation(NEC) payments are to be isolated and reported on a 1099-NEC.  In previous years, businesses reported those payments in box 7 on Form 1099-MISC. Payments such as, services, products, contractual obligations and working interest payments are now reported on the 1099-NEC.

If you received both royalty and working interest payments, these are now reported on separate forms.  Also, if you received royalty payments and provided services to Chord, these too will be reported on different forms.

Production taxes are a state tax (but not income tax) that we are required to withhold for any product that is produced from the ground. Deductions are expenses from production such as gathering, transportation, fuel, etc.

Since we paid the income under that tax ID, we cannot update the associated form.  If you provide the information at this time, we will update your account and pay under that tax ID moving forward.

If you have identified a specific discrepancy on your Form 1099, please reach out to the Chord Energy Owner Relations group at (855) 209 – 8370 or email us at OwnerInquiry@ChordEnergy.com

Payments to Enerplus owners will continue to be made via the same process  currently in place for Enerplus-operated wells. There will be no immediate change in the check or ACH process for royalty payments and there should be no interruptions to the normal payment schedule(s). You will receive a 1099 from Enerplus in early 2025 per normal course of business. We will update you in the future if changes will be made as a result of our ongoing integration efforts. 

Your owner number will not change at this time. We will update you in the future if changes will be made as a result of our ongoing integration efforts.

If you had a pending ownership change with Enerplus, you do not need to resubmit that paperwork to Chord Energy. Your request is still in the queue to be processed. 

Typically, we run our revenue checks at the end of each month. Please allow until the 15th to receive your check.

For various reasons, a check may arrive a few days late.  If your check is more than two weeks late, please contact Enerplus at USRoyaltyRelations@Enerplus.com.  A frequent reason for not receiving a royalty check is that your account has not reached its “minimum pay status.”  Revenue is remitted to owners once an account balance exceeds $100, yearly, or as dictated by the laws of the state in which the relevant property is located, or your specific lease language. Occasionally, payments are held due to title matters that create uncertainly as to ownership, such as notice of death, change of address, transfer of property, assignment of interest, or legal dispute. Revenue is accumulated and released when the matter affecting ownership has been resolved.

Please contact Enerplus Owner Relations at  USRoyaltyRelations@Enerplus.com. Be sure to clearly state your name, owner number, phone number, and or e-mail address.

The bank will not honor checks that have been outstanding for more than 90 days.  If an owner discovers that its check is stale-dated, they should return the check to the company from which it was issued (i.e., Chord or Enerplus), attn: Accounting Department.  If the returned check has not previously been reissued to the owner, it will be voided and the entire amount of the check will be credited to the owner’s account or sent in the mail as part of the next regularly-scheduled check run.  

Please promptly notify Enerplus, via its owner relations contact information set out below of any change in your mailing address.  This notice must be in writing and signed by you or your official representative.  Please include your name, owner number, last 4 digits of your SSN/TIN, old address, and new address including the zip code.  For your protection, address changes are not accepted by telephone.  Please send address change information to:  USRoyaltyRelations@Enerplus.com.

You should provide Enerplus with a recorded copy of the deed, assignment, or other instrument of conveyance properly recorded in the county in which the property is located.

Many factors contribute to your payment such as changing market conditions and commodity prices, mechanical or operational issues, or routine maintenance. Also, over time, production volumes from an individual well will typically experience a natural decline. 

Please continue to send all payments to the same Enerplus address to which you have historically sent payments. For your convenience, here is the Enerplus address :

Enerplus Resources

Dept 2365

Denver, CO  80291-2365
 

We hope these questions and answers alleviate most of your concerns. As always, please reach out to Enerplus’ Owner Relations group at USRoyaltyRelations@Enerplus.com or 720-279-5599 with any further questions.