BLM Federal Leases, ONRR Royalties and Split Estate in the Energy Pack

On federal-land tracts, three questions come before anything else: is there a federal lease on this ground, does the federal government own the minerals, and what has the county paid in federal royalty? The Energy pack answers each from the agency that keeps the record: BLM for leases and mineral ownership, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) for royalties.

BLM federal oil and gas leases

On the map

In the Layers panel, expand Federal & cross-state and turn on Federal O&G Leases. Lease polygons come from BLM's Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS) and are colored by status:

• Authorized: an issued lease in effect
• Pending: an application or offer not yet issued
• Interim: BLM's interim status
• Closed: expired, relinquished or terminated

Closed leases make up most of the MLRS record, so they draw in muted gray and the live leases stand out against them.

Click a lease for its popup: serial number, legal location, status, effective and expiration dates, acres and county. The copy button copies the lease's legal location in Township America's search format, so you can paste it straight back into search. Where MLRS has no legal location (Texas and the non-PLSS eastern states), it copies the serial number instead.

MLRS does not publish the lessee on this layer, so the popup shows the serial number without a holder name. Use the serial to pull the case file from BLM.

On the Energy tab

The BLM federal leases card lists the oil and gas leases that intersect the section, with serial, status and expiration, plus any geothermal leases. Click the chevron on a lease to open its lease record: holder (when published), status, type or commodity, acreage, effective and expiration dates.

The federal lease directory has a page for many of the largest BLM leases, and the Federal Land pack's BLM records guide covers rights-of-way, geothermal leases and mining claims on the same section.

ONRR federal royalties

The Federal mineral royalties card shows the federal royalty ONRR reports for the county the section sits in, over the last ten years, as a total and broken out by commodity.

Read it as county context:

• Every section in the same county shows the same figures.
• ONRR does not publish royalty for individual leases, so there is no parcel-level royalty figure to show.
• A county with no federal royalty in the period shows a short note instead of a table.

It is useful for sizing how active federal production is in a county. It is not a royalty statement for any lease, and it does not tell you what a given tract earned.

Federal subsurface minerals and split estate

The Federal Subsurface Minerals layer

Under Federal & cross-state, Federal Subsurface Minerals draws BLM's mapped units of federally owned minerals, in the states where BLM has mapped them. Click a unit for its mineral ownership, surface ownership, source dataset and acres.

This is the layer to check when the surface is private but the minerals may have been reserved to the United States at patent, a common pattern on stock-raising homesteads in the West.

The Split-estate card

The Split-estate card on the Energy tab compares two mapped datasets for the section: BLM's federal subsurface minerals and BLM's surface management agency layer. If one shows federal ownership over a meaningful share of the section and the other does not, the card reports a split estate. Otherwise it says Not detected.

The flag is derived by Township America from those two layers. Treat it as a prompt to pull the patent and the BLM case record, not as a finding. A "not detected" result on ground BLM has not mapped tells you nothing about the minerals.

The Surface & access card nearby shows the surface management agency and any BLM public-access records for the section. Like the lease card, it reads from the Federal Land report on the web.

Worked example

A landman is evaluating Section 22, Township 19 North, Range 104 West, Sixth Principal Meridian, in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, in the checkerboard country around Rock Springs where federal and private sections alternate.

1. Search 22 19N 104W 6th Meridian and click Report. Open Energy.
2. BLM federal leases lists any federal oil and gas leases on the section. An authorized lease means the federal minerals are already leased; note the serial and expiration date.
3. Split-estate shows whether the surface and mineral records disagree.
4. On the map, turn on Federal Subsurface Minerals and Federal O&G Leases together to see how the section sits against its neighbors.
5. Federal mineral royalties gives Sweetwater County's federal royalty by commodity, as context for how much federal production the county carries.

Each serial number then goes to BLM MLRS for the case file, and the patent goes to the county clerk. For the state-level picture first, start from the Energy state pages.

Limits

• MLRS status vocabulary. MLRS uses Authorized, Pending, Interim and Closed. It does not separate expired, relinquished or terminated leases; all three are Closed.
• No lessee on the map layer. The serial number is the key. The holder comes from the BLM case record.
• No search source for leases. Federal leases are not a search source yet. Find them by section on the map or the Energy tab, or browse the lease directory.
• County-level royalties only. ONRR figures are county aggregates, not lease or parcel revenue.
• Mapped minerals only. Federal subsurface data covers the states BLM has mapped. Absence on the map is not proof of private minerals.
• Not a title opinion. These are public records. Mineral ownership and lease rights are settled by title examination, not by a map layer.

For how these records fit into a full report and PDF, see parcel reports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the lease popup have no lessee name?

BLM's MLRS lease layer does not publish the lessee. Look up the serial number in MLRS to see the case record and its parties.

Can I see royalties for one lease?

Not from ONRR's public data. ONRR publishes royalty by state, county and commodity, so the Energy tab shows the county figure.

Does a split-estate flag mean the minerals are federal?

It means the mapped surface and mineral layers disagree for that section. Confirm with the land patent and the BLM record before you rely on it.

Why are most leases on the map gray?

Gray is Closed. Most MLRS lease records are historical, so closed leases form the background and authorized, pending and interim leases show in color.